Final Olympic gold to Lithuania

  • 2012-08-14

VILNIUS - Lithuania’s Laura Asadauskaite claimed the last medal of the Games on Sunday, taking gold in the women’s modern pentathlon to complete the family set of Olympic medals, reports Reuters. The world number one is married to fellow Lithuanian modern pentathlete Andrejus Zadneprovskis, who won bronze in Beijing four years ago and silver in Athens in 2004.

“This is the first Olympic gold medal in our family,” said the 28-year-old, who missed the 2010 season to give birth to her daughter. “I am immensely excited. I had a great deal of support from the people of Lithuania. It is only a small country. So this means the world to them.”

Asadauskaite won 23 of her 35 fencing bouts to take third position from the start, and despite a disappointing swim, which saw her finish seventeenth she clawed her way to the top of the leaderboard with a solid ride, knocking off just one rail.