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Toth wins Slovakia's first ever Olympic athletics gold medal

Xinhua, August 20, 2016 Adjust font size:

Slovakia claimed their first ever Olympic athletics gold medal on Friday when Matej Toth charged home to win the 50km race walk in Rio.

The 33-year-old Beijing world championships winner trailed defending champion Jared Tallent of Australia until the final stages of the race to win in three hours 40.58 seconds.

Tallent took silver in 3:41.16 with Canada's Evan Dunfee clinching bronze in 3:41.38.

China's Yu Wei was fourth, missing out on a podium finish by 1.22 seconds .

France's world record holder Yohann Diniz led for much of the race before crossing the line in seventh.

"It was a very tough race because it was very warm," Toth said. "Nobody could do the final attack. If somebody tried to attack, it was not as successful as they expected.

"It was very important to wait until maybe 40, 45km. That's why it was very close, because we were a very big group. Nobody wanted to push hard." Enditem