Diniz knocked three-and-a-half minutes off his personal best in completing the course around the streets of Gothenburg in 3hr 41.39min.

Diniz, 27, took the lead with two laps of the course remaining, cruising past long-time leader Trond Nymark of Norway.

Nymark led through to the 20km mark and by 40km, had built up a 38-second lead over Andrei Stsepanchuk of Belarus.

The Belarussian then fell off the pace, with Diniz and Spaniard Jesus Angel Garcia taking up the chase.

Diniz, who changed his walking style after being disqualified at last year's world championships in Helsinki, maintained his pace and soon surged ahead of a tiring field competing in torrential rain.

Russian Yuriy Andronov made a late charge for bronze, overtaking Nymark but just falling short of catching Garcia, who took silver 1:09min behind Diniz.

Diniz's performance handed the French team its third gold medal after Mehdi Baala and Marc Raquil won the 1500m and 400m respectively on Wednesday.

The violent thunderstorm led to the postponement of the second discipline in the men's decathlon, the long jump.

The event is a top biller here, featuring seven of the top 10 from last year's world championships final in Helsinki won by American Bryan Clay.

In the first discipline, the 100m, Belgium's Francois Gourmet recorded the fastest time with 10.75sec for 917 points.

Russian Aleksey Drozdov, 10th in Helsinki, recorded a personal best of 11.05sec for 850 pts in winning his heat ahead of European season leader Romain Barras of France (11.22sec).

Tomas Dvorak of the Czech Republic, who won world gold in 1997, 1999 and 2001 and is now in his final season, posted 11.25sec for 806 pts and compatriot Roman Sebrle, the Olympic champion, ran 10.98sec for 865 pts.

Finals in the evening's session include the 400m, 800m and discus for the women, and the 200m and 400m hurdles for the men.

The decathletes have the shot put, high jump and 400m to contest.