Deakes gives Australia a race walk gold at last

By John Bagratuni Sep 1, 2007, 10:10 GMT

Osaka, Japan - Nathan Deakes cried tears joy before the finish line as he gave the proud road walking nation Australia its first-ever big event title, the 50km world championship gold on Saturday.

The world record holder Deakes, 30, walked away from European champion Yohan Diniz of France at the 34-kilometre mark to take the gold in 3 hours 43 minutes 53 seconds.

Diniz got silver in 3:44:22 and Italian season-leader Alex Schwazer got a bronze as in 2005, clocking 3:44:38.

Deakes had enough time to salute the fans over the final kilometre before being overcome by emotion on the home stretch in Osaka's Nagai stadium.

'This is the highlight of my career. The highlight of my life is getting married, but this comes fairly close. That's what every athlete dreams of,' said Deakes.

'On the final 100m I was thinking of all the sacrifices I have made and the patchy year I had.'

Diniz said 'the gold wasn't out of reach but it wasn't for me today,' while Schwazer cried tears of disappointment because 'I started to slow and then couldn't catch up with the best.'

Australia has produced many top class walkers but their best results until Saturday at worlds and Olympics were several bronze medals, among them Deakes in the Olympic 20km in 2004.

Deakes' gold was Australia's second in Osaka, the other coming Thursday from 400m hurdler Jana Rawlinson.

'This gold is great for Australia and our sports,' he said.

Conditions were not quite as tough as in last week's 20km but the temperature was up to 30 degrees in the closing stages under sunny Japanese skies. The 20km took place in heat of up to 33 degrees and intense humidity.

Early race leader Yu Chaoheng of China was disqualified at 28km and Russian defending champion Sergey Kirdyapkin quit with less than 10km left.

Hosts Japan had a brief hope of getting their first medal at last at the worlds, but Yuki Yamazaki lost contact with Deakes and Diniz after 32km. He appeared to finish fifth but was disqualified because he didn't run the full distance, missing a lap in the streets.

It was seemingly the latest failure of Japanese officials to lead the walkers in the right direction. Athletes were sent the wrong way in the men's 20km race and also in the women's 20km on Friday.

In other action, the United States rested 200m champion Allyson Felix in the 4x100m heats but with the help of 100m silver medallist Lauryn Williams still posted a world-leading 42.24 seconds. Main rivals Jamaica had 42.70 without the rested 100m champion and 200m runner-up Veronica Campbell.

Maurice Smith of Jamaica stretched his decathlon lead with 6,431 points from seven events. Dmitry Karpov of Kazakhstan has 6,259 and Czech world record holder Roman Sebrle has 6,210 points. The 2003 champion Tom Pappas joined fellow-American holder Bryan Clay on the sidelines due to injury.

The decathlon was to to continue all day and to be completed in the evening session, with the other medal events being the men's 4x100m relay and pole vault, and the women's 4x100m and 5,000m.