Britain's Chris Maddocks was given a tremendous reception as he completed the 50km walk at his fifth Olympics.

Although last to finish, in a time of four hours, 52 minutes and 12 seconds, he was cheered all the way to the line by the Sydney crowd.

Maddocks, who has also competed in six World Championships, was clearly delighted to have crossed the finishing line in temperatures touching 30 degrees Celsius, despite being just under one hour and 10 minutes behind the winner.

"I never thought it was going to happen," said Maddocks. "I was hurting even from my warm-up.

"My hamstring had been troubling me for several weeks now and the physio was on the go from the moment I arrived in Sydney.

"I just knew I was in trouble from the beginning and I'm just so grateful for all my friends and fans out there who kept me going because I so desperately wanted to stop I was hurting so much.

"The Olympic Games is the most important thing I do and I had friends out there who reminded me that if I got back to the finish how important it would be to me and how much it would hurt if I stopped at 20k - it would hurt for the rest of my life.

"At the moment it hurts and maybe it will pass in a few weeks, but at least I kept my major championship record in tact.

"I've done 21 majors now and I've never failed to finish - everyone kept reminding me of that during the race.

"I'm so relieved and God, that reception at the end, it was out of this world."

Poland's Robert Korzeniowski walked his way into the history books when he became the first man in Olympic history to win the 20km and 50km race walk double.

He retained his title in the longest event on the athletics programme - another historic first.

Latvia's Agars Fadejevs took silver while Mexican Joel Sanchez finished with the bronze.