Australian Dane Bird-Smith has overcome a mid-race bingle and an upset stomach to finish eighth in the 20km race at the world athletics championships, confirming his status as the next big thing in Australian walking.
Bird-Smith, 23, was among a group of several walkers who crashed over a flower bed in the middle of the course at the 12km mark.
But he was able to regroup, passing a host of competitors in the final few kilometres to claim eighth spot in a time of one hour, 21 minutes and 37 seconds, three places better than on his world titles debut two years ago in Moscow.
Multiple world and Olympic medallist Jared Tallent was back in 27th spot, with his best shot of a podium finish to come in Saturday's 50km race.
With the dominant Russian walkers all absent following a string of positive drug tests, Spaniard Miguel Angel Lopez took gold in 1:19:14 ahead of China's Zhen Wang and Benjamin Thorne from Canada.
But Bird-Smith served notice that he will be among the walkers to watch in this event at the 2016 Olympics.
"This is where now I can fight it out on the crap days and I can bring a top eight," he said.
"With another year of training under the belt, maybe get some altitude work done and I can pull into that top five and maybe medal, that is what I want.
"It is Rio, it is going to be the big one, these boys had better earn it, otherwise I am there."
The key moment of Sunday's race for Bird-Smith came at the 12km mark when a Japanese competitor cut in front of him, causing several walkers to fall over and costing them at least 15 seconds.
"It was all A over T, that was a bit of a bungle but we got through it," said Bird-Smith.
"The knee is a little bit sore.
"But stuff can go wrong and you have to fight through it.
"It's always going to happen and you have to show some character."
Bird-Smith also suffered an upset stomach early in the race on a hot, steamy morning in Beijing.
"It was just one of those days for me," he said.
"Murphy's Law strikes again, everything that could go wrong did.
"The gut was gone at about 10 kilometres, and the legs and I took the massive tumble."
Despite finishing back in 27th spot - six places ahead of the third Australian - Chris Erickson - Tallent felt he could still be a contender in his favoured longer event.
"The pace is totally different for the 50K," he said.
"Today I felt like I could go forever, I just couldn't go any faster.
"I probably didn't finish off as well as I thought I could, mentally I was struggling a bit.
"But I am looking forward to next week."
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