BEIJING, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- Spain's Miguel Angel Lopez claimed the men's 20km race walk gold medal at the world athletics championships here on Sunday.

Lopez overtook leading Chinese Wang Zhen with one kilometer to go and cruised to the finish line at the iconic "Bird's Nest" National Stadium in a time of one hour, 19 minutes and 14 seconds.

Wang took silver in 1:19.29 and Canada's Benjamin Thorne had bronze in 1:19:57.

China's Olympic champion Chen Ding finished eighth, saying he was under pressure.

"We felt pressure because everyone was talking about 'Bird's Nest' and competing at home," he said.