BUENOS AIRES, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- Amber Schlebusch of South Africa pulled off a stunning comeback to win women's triathlon gold at the Youth Olympic Games held in Buenos Aires on Sunday.

Denmark's Sif Bendix Madsen, who led going into the run, took the silver and Anja Weber of Switzerland scored a bronze.

Schlebusch lay seventh after the swimming section and then found herself eighth and nearly a minute adrift after the bike segment.

"I was a swimmer before triathlon and it's funny that the swim now is my worst segment," said the South African afterwards. "Not just today - swimming is usually my worst. I definitely need to pick it up."

Schlebusch trailed in third after the first of two laps of the final segment but ran each circuit 30 seconds faster than her Danish rival and almost 60 seconds faster than the Swiss.

"On the run, that is where I put most of my confidence, and I just decided to catch them one by one. Take each one as it comes. I tried to close them down and it managed to work."

"It was a bad swim but then I caught up on the run," said the South African, who was close to tears as she crossed the finish line, 11 seconds ahead of the Danish athlete. "I'm really, really happy to end up feeling really strong. Now I can say I'm the Youth Olympic champion. It's a pretty good title to have so I'm really stoked."

The Youth Olympics will run through to Oct. 18.