In a dramatic finish Pavel Parshin (r) of Russia takes the World Youth 10,000m title in Lille (© Getty Images)
There was a dramatic finish to the 10,000m Race Walk when the fourth day's action at the IAAF World Youth Championships in Lille got underway on a cool and damp French morning (9).
The first track event saw Manuel Esteban Soto disqualified after outpacing the pre-event favourite Pavel Parshin in the final 50 metres but being adjudged to have broken the rule which says contact must be maintained with the ground particularly in the final straight.
The Colombian, who in the 25 laps competition was in third place almost throughout, had his celebrations in the finish area turn to despair when a judge rushed over to him a minute later and waved the red card.
That saw Parshin awarded the gold medal and become the sixth Russian to win the title after Yevgeniy Demkov clinched the first in Bydgoszcz 12 years earlier.
Parshin who came to Lille as the world leader (41:18) also achieved the feat with an outstanding new Championship record of 40:51.31 replacing the the mark of 41:35.99 which Germany's Hagen Pohle posted when breaking the Russian dominance of the event in Bressanone two years ago.
There was some consolation for the Columbian team when Kenny Martin Perez, the only walker apart from early leader Mohammed Saleh of Egypt who was also disqualified, to take his turn at the front, finished second.
Perez commenting on his colleague's bad news, said: "Im very happy but it's so difficult for my friend Soto. He won the race but the judges said that he was disqualified. During the last sprint he ran a little - but I'm not sure. It's cruel."
The silver medallist, who fell away with 200m remaining when Parshin made his break covered by Soto, finished in a personal best 40:59.25 while Erwin Gonzalez of Mexico who had been dropped between 8km and 9km took the bronze medal with his lifetime fastest of 41:09.60.
Moolman breaks eight year old championship javelin record in qualifying
World leader Mornie Moolman produced a great start to his javelin campaign when smashing the Championship record with his second round throw of 83.16m.
The South African's effort superseded the distance of 81.16m which won Brazil's Julio Cesar de Oliveira the gold medal at the 2003 Championships in Sherbrooke Canada. Behind Moolman, whose previous world lead stood at 81.37m, Finland's Joni Karvinen also got in an 80m plus throw and personal best of 80.05m.
Four others - Ali Kilisli of Turkey with a PB 75.11m, Guisheng Zhang from China (73.35m),Yuriy Kushniruk (71.36m) and South Africa's Reinhard Van Zyl (70.36m) - threw over 70m to qualify by right.
World long jump leader Beck makes final, but with low key jump
World No 5. Malaika Mihambo on a cool morning with her first attempt was the first of only two girls to attain the automatic long jump qualifier of six metres.
The German achieved it when clearing 6.04m with Akela Jones of Barbados also in her group progressing automatically with 6.10m in round two.
Ukraine's world leader Maryna Bekh who cleared 6.47 metres in mid-June - the same distance as Darya Klishina's Championship record which the Russian achieved four years ago in Ostrava - went through to the final but only with a low key jump of 5.90m.
Medley Relays qualifying
The USA's Medley (100m, 200m, 300m and 400m) Relay team provided the slickest display of the qualifying rounds when striking a healthy three seconds from this year's World leading performance by Hungary a month ago.
Cameron Burrell - son of former world 100m record holder Leroy - gave their quartet a perfect start and with Aldrich Bailey, newly crowned 400m gold medallist Arman Hall and Najee Glass looking good, they moved the baton around in a time of 1:51.53.
With only the winners of the four heats moving into Sunday's final by right there was a healthy rivalry displayed in each and every heat, none more so on the final one lap legs by Takuya Fukunaga, Thomas Jordier and Machel Cedenio.
Japan's Fukunaga and Jordier of France both overtook their respective rivals with late dashes for the line and automatic qualification in 1:52.45 and 1:53.01 while Trinidad's Cedenio was simply awesome.
His tall figure trailed Omar McLeod of Jamaica by 10 metres with only 50 metres of their encounter remaining yet his long striding legs carried him past his fellow Caribbean to clinch victory in 1:53.52.
The Bahamas (1:52.66), Poland (1|:53.05), the Jamaicans (1:53.66) and Brazil (1:54.68) qualified as fastest losers while Canada, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Hungary were disqualified.
Jamaica led the girl's qualifiers also with a world lead of 2:05.59 which bettered the previous fastest of 2:13.60 run by South Africa at the end of May in Windhoek, Nambia.
They superseded Russia who a few minutes earlier had won their competition in 2:08.66 thanks to a speedy last leg by Anastasiya Nikolaeva who pulled back a 15 metre deficit. and saw them cross the line in 2:08.66.
They will be joined by the other heat winners the USA who field 100 gold medallist Jennifer Madu on the first leg and recorded 2:09.39 plus fastest losers Nigeria (2:08.44), Poland (2:08.68), Canada (2:08.97), Romania (2:10.323) and South Africa (2:10.48).
David Martin for the IAAF
