Cook serves up medal double

Stephanie Cook won Britain's 11th gold medal of the Games and Kate Allenby struck bronze in a marvellous modern pentathlon double in Sydney.  

Cook overturned a 49-second disadvantage on the cross country run to snatch the first women's Olympic title from the American Emily deRiel.

Allenby, who had started second in the fifth and final event, was overhauled by her fellow Briton but clung on to third place.

Cook, who postponed her medical career for a year to bid for Games glory, was lying eighth overall going into the fifth discipline in Sydney's Baseball Stadium.

But the Irvine-born doctor passed her examination as she used her running superiority to make up the deficit on the 3km cross country run.

Britain's medal tally, which had been 25 overnight, had now risen to 28 - 11 gold, 10 silver, seven bronze - their best gold medal haul at a Games since Antwerp 1920.

Cook had been lying 14th following the swimming discipline during which Allenby had moved into second place overall.

Allenby held onto that position in the showjumping while Cook, who like her team-mate is now based in Bath, improved her overall position by six places.

The British duo held their own in the fencing event as the specialist tuition they had been receiving for the past few months paid off.

The women were competing in modern pentathlon - made up of shooting, fencing, swimming, riding and running - for the first time at a Games though Britain won the men's team event in Montreal in 1976 with stalwart Jim Fox leading the way.