Italy's Ivano Brugnetti sped away from Spain's Francisco Fernandez in the final 400 meters of the Olympic Games men's 20km walk to clinch the gold medal in a personal best 1hr 19mins 40sec yesterday.
Fernandez, second in last year's World Championships, had to settle for the silver again, coming home five seconds behind the 1999 50km world champion.
"I knew if it came down to a race in the last kilometer between myself and Fernandez that I would win, because he's weak mentally," boasted Brugnetti.
Brugnetti was always confident he was going to get on the medal podium, the only question was where.
"I knew I had a medal in my legs. The only thing I didn't think was possible was the gold. I thought that was going to go to Jefferson Perez [Ecuador's 1996 Olympic champion who finished fourth here]. I don't know what happened to him."
Despite having been world champion five years ago over 50km, it is only in the last 18 months that Brugnetti has felt he has found the distance that really suited him.
"It's been four difficult years since I failed to finish the 50km walk in Sydney. I have not finished a race over that distance since, and so I decided to concentrate on the 20km last year. Obviously, it's completely changed me."
Fernandez crossed the finish line with tears in his eyes.
"This is very emotional. My long-time coach died in April, this is for him," said Fernandez, who raced with a black ribbon on his vest in memory of his mentor.
Australia's Nathan Deakes hung on for the bronze medal in 1:20.02, after losing contact with the leading pair two kilometers from the finish.
Four for Phelps
American swimmer Michael Phelps added a fourth Olympic gold at the Athens Games on Thursday with a comfortable victory in the 200 meters medley that kept him on course for a record eight medals.
Two earlier golds in the pool raised the US's haul to 13, one gold behind China in the overall medals race.
Nineteen-year-old Phelps led from the start and finished almost a body length ahead of compatriot Ryan Lochte. With two bronze also won, he could be the first swimmer to win eight medals at a single Olympics, equalling a record for all sports.
victory restored
Team mate Aaron Peirsol was dramatically stripped of his gold in the men's 200 backstroke because of an alleged illegal turn. But the victory was quickly restored on appeal and Austria's Markus Rogan had to be content with his silver.
American world champion and world record holder Amanda Beard seized the top honors in the 200 meter breast stroke.
China's shrinking medals lead was defended by weightlifting phenomenon Liu Chunhong, also 19, who took the title and set a world record in the women's 69kg class with lifts totalling 275kg, giving China its fourth weightlifting gold of the Games.
Zhang Jun and Gao Ling of China tossed another gold onto China's pile at the mixed doubles badminton and Zhang Ning grab-bed gold in individual competition:
Bomb hoax
Outside the arenas on Day Six, the Games of the 28th Olympiad was annoyed by a bomb hoax and buffeted by Middle East politics.
Olympic officials backed away from sanctioning Iran for its judo world champion's failure to fight an Israeli and five new doping cases in weightlifting were reported.
World weightlifting officials said seven lifters from Morocco, Moldova, Hungary, India, Turkey and Myanmar had tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in pre-Olympics tests and had been kept out of the Games.
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