The Czech Republic's Roman Sebrle added the one major decathlon title missing from his illustrious collection to become the first man since Daley Thompson to simultaneously hold the World, Olympic and European titles.

He held the advantage going into the closing 1500m and did enough to narrowly hold off Maurice Smith of Jamaica.

Sebrle took gold with a total of 8676 points from Smith on 8644.

The bronze went to Kazakhstan's Dmitriy Karpov, who amassed 8586 points.

A deleighted Sebrle said: "That was a crazy competition with so many ups and downs.

"After the pole vault, I was thinking 'it will be bad'. After the javelin again 'good'.

"But I could not be sure before the 1500m, so I tried to control the race and go with Maurice and Dmitry."

Sebrle added: "This is the toughest of all my titles."

The USA added to their impressive medal haul when Brad Walker took gold in the pole vault from France's Roman Mesnil.

Both vaulters cleared 5.86m but after both failed on three attempts at 5.91m, Walker got the nod having cleared the lower height on his first attempt.

Danny Ecker of Germany (5.81) was in the bronze medal position.

"First attempts are always a huge deal in the finals. If you can make it that puts also lot of pressure on the other competitors," said Walker afterwards.