Italy's Schwazer denies Russians golden walk-over

Beijing: Alex Schwazer of Italy won the men's 50-kilometer walk here on Friday to deny Russia a cleansweep of the Olympic titles.

The 23-year-old two time world medallist broke the 20-year-old Olympic record as he timed 3hours 37minutes and nine seconds to take gold ahead of 20km bronze medalist Jared Tallent of Australia, who had a personal best of 3hr 39:27, while Russian number one Denis Nizhegorodov won the bronze in 3hr 40.14.

The race was down to five men at the 20 km mark with Tallent, Schwazer, China's Li Jianbo, who was appearing in his first global championships, Nizhegorodov and France's European champion Yohann Diniz slightly adrift in fifth.

However, by the halfway mark Diniz was losing ground all the time and was some 26sec behind the leading quartet, having lost 20sec in the last 5km - Tallent led the lead group.

Diniz, who was heavily favoured to at the very least medal, came to a virtual standstill after just over 2hrs, but having looked like calling it a day the former rave party organiser and wine expert tried to get going again.

He was still fifth at the 30km mark but his temporary stop had cost him dearly as he was now almost two minutes behind the lead group, all hopes of a medal gone. He eventually pulled out a short distance further on.

Up ahead the quartet of leaders had the medal fight to themselves - the two questions remaining was who was going to have the strength to take the gold and who was going to be the unlucky one not to medal.

The latter question was settled when Schwazer, Tallent and Nizhegorodov upped the pace and shook off Li, any thoughts of him fighting his way back into contention were dispelled by the 40km mark as he was nearly two minutes off the lead.

Schwazer bided his time and then pounced to make what he hoped was the decisive break for gold at around the 42km mark and with five kilometers to race he had a relatively comfortable 40sec lead over Tallent and Nizhegorodov.

Tallent, who had blasted the Russian 20km winner Valeriy Borchin because of his being a stablemate of several walkers who had failed dope tests, ditched Nizhegorodov shortly after the 45km mark and quickly opened up an unassailable lead over the Russian.

Schwazer was so confident that he had the gold he raised his finger to illustrate he was number one as he passed some cheering Italian fans. He was not to be proved wrong.