The Briton, now based in Norway, returned to racing this season after taking a year out to have a baby.

In the beautiful surrounds of Stråsø forest she produced an equally beautiful result as she once again held off the challenge of the Czech Republic’s Veronika Kubinova, who won her third silver of these Championships.

Gabrielė Andrašiūnienė finished third and brought a first medal to Lithuania in this competition.

Ruslan Gritsan won his fifth men’s W21 long distance race as his Russian team-mate Anton Foliforov earned his third medal so far in this year's event by taking bronze.

Gritsan won in a time of 1 hour 50min 49sec, 89 seconds ahead of France’s Baptiste Fuchs.

Foliforov, a silver medallist in the men’s sprint after finishing one-second slower than team-mate Grigory Medvedev, and a silver medallist again, this time ahead of Medvedev, in the middle distance race, today made the podium once more in an event he has won four times since 2010 as he finished 1min 47sec behind Gritsan.

The W20 men’s junior long distance title went to Jan Hasek of the Czech Republic, who clocked 1:29:28 to take gold ahead of the home athlete who had beaten him to the sprint title earlier in the week.

Thomas Steinthal took the silver medal as he finished 1:51 behind the victor on the day, with Finland’s Teemu Kaksonen earning bronze, 3:14 back, with compatriot Juha Lilja fourth.

Finland’s women’s sprint bronze medallist Kaarina Nurminen added a gold in the W20 long race, clocking 1:31:44, with France’s Marine Denoual at 2:16 back and Vilma Kralova of the Czech Republic third at 2:27.