Alexandr Ivanov gave hosts Russia a first gold medal at the world athletics championships when he topped the men’s 20km walk.
Ivanov took gold in a personal best 1 hour 20 minutes 58 seconds as he beat Olympic champion Chen Ding of China (1:21:09) and Miguel Angel Lopez of Spain (1:21:21) in front of a delighted Luzhniki stadium crowd.
At age 20, Ivanov is the youngest ever world champion in the race walks. It helped his cause that Erick Barrondo of Guatemala, with who he was in joint lead, was disqualified late in the race.
The other evening session finals were to be the blue-riband men’s 100m with Usain Bolt as the favourite, and the women’s 10,000m, long jump and discus.
The decathlon was also to be completed. Olympic champion and world record holder Ashton Eaton of the US was top with 7,252 points ahead of Germans Michael Schrader (7,071) and Rico Freimuth (7,007) after eight events.
