PLYMOUTH pentathlete Kerenza Bryson has made an impressive start to Olympic year by winning the women’s individual event at the UIPM 2024 Pentathlon World Cup in Ankara, Turkey.

Bryson, a medallist at last year’s World Championships in Bath, took victory by an impressive 26 seconds, with Changwan Seo of Korea taking silver.

The gold medal she won in Turkey on Saturday followed on from winning bronze at the opening World Cup event in Cairo last month and also a bronze at the Hungarian Indoor Meet in February.

“I am on a run at the moment and I feel like it’s just positive vibes all round,” said Bryson after her win.

“I’m really happy with how my prep is going this season. It couldn’t really be going any better, to be honest.

“I was really happy to start the laser-run in first because that’s not comfortable for me. I’m not used to starting first and I was definitely not in my safe space, so it was really good practice to deal with that pressure.

“I’ve just got to stay confident in myself and trust in the process and my coaches and the programme. If I can keep going and trusting in myself it will keep going in the right direction for the (Olympic) Games.”

She added: “Nothing will quite beat the World Championships in Bath when I had all my family and friends there, but I’m really grateful that my mum and partner came out to see me. It was a shame my dad couldn’t come – I’d love for him to have watched me getting gold but he’s doing some really important work. But I had great support out here from my family and my amazing team.”

Bryson enjoyed a clear round in the riding discipline and surged to the top of the leaderboard in the fencing ranking round with the highest score of her senior career, 27 victories and eight defeats.

She had a solid swim, which is her weakest event, clocking 2:23.89, but none of her rivals could close the gap on the laser-run, where Bryson clocked 11:40.80 minutes to win by 26 seconds.

In the men’s competition, fellow Plymouth athlete Myles Pillage had a good competition. He reached the final and finished eighth and was the top Brit and third European.