Olympic and world heptathlon champion Carolina Kluft won the pentathlon gold medal after trailing in three events on Friday's opening day of the European Indoor athletics championships.
Kluft, who hasn't lost a multi-event competition in five years, was two points behind Britain's Kelly Sotherton after the 60-m hurdles, high jump and shot put at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham, England.
But her season's best leap of 6.59m in the long jump and second-place in the 800m gave her a winning total of 4,944 points. Sotherton, who won the 800m, had 4,927.
Karin Ruckstuhl of the Netherlands took bronze with 4,801 points.
"It was very hard right from the stat and Kelly pushed all the time on every event," Kluft said. "I will lose one day -- I'm not unbeatable and Kelly will beat me."
The Swede took an early lead on Friday by winning the hurdles in 8.20 seconds -- bettering her 8.64 in Stockholm last month.
She ran within one-hundredth of a second of her personal best to beat Britain's Jessica Ennis, who clocked 8.22, and Sotherton, who ran 8.23.
Ennis, the Commonwealth bronze medalist, cleared a personal best in the high jump of 1.91m, 3cm higher than Kluft. Sotherton also cleared 1.88. Out of 15 competitors, 10 had personal bests.
Olympic silver medalist Austra Skujyte of Lithuania threw 16.48m to win the shot put.
"A good thing is everyone's producing personal bests and raising their game," Sotherton said. "I've really worked my guts out and its been fantastic to come here as we've all raised our game."
Meanwhile in the second qualifying heat in the women's 800m, Karen Harewood of Britain was carried off on a stretcher with a suspected broken left leg as one of four athletes that fell in a collision. Slovakia's Jolanda Ceplak ran 2:02.82 to lead the field going into yesterday's semi-finals.
There was further glory for Sweden with Susanna Kallur retaining the 60m hurdles title in 7.87 seconds.
A photo-finish in the men's 60m hurdles delivered the Netherlands gold and silver. Gregory Sedoc set a personal best of 7.63 seconds, just 0.01 ahead of Marcel van der Westen.
Slovakia won its first indoors gold medal after Mikulas Konopka threw 21.57m in the shot put, 75cm clear of Belarus' Pavel Lyzhyn.
In qualifying for the men's 3,000m, British favorite Mo Farah recovered after falling midway through the race.
"A guy just kicked me on the leg," Farah said. "[Then] I got up and started running the wrong way which lost me some time. I decided I had to catch them -- I didn't want all the training I have done to go out of the window."
He finished in 7 minutes, 55.36 seconds to go through to yesterday's final as one of the fastest losers.
European 5,000m champion Jesus Espana of Spain ran 7:52.50 to top the qualifiers, ahead of Austria's Gunther Weidlinger and Ireland's Alistair Cragg.
European outdoor silver medalist Nathan Douglas leapt 16.96m in the triple jump, and Germany's Bjorn Otto cleared 5.70m in the pole vault to qualify first for yesterday's finals.
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