Okayama was at the forefront of the men's race from the off, and sat in a five-person group with his team-mates Jumpei Yamaguchi and Nao Kazami, as well as Guillaume Ruel of France and Denilson Silva from Brazil up until nine miles.

By the time they had reached the 10th mile, Ruel had pulled out to a 15-second gap.

He extended the gap to over a minute by the time the runners had completed the first third, with Silva dropping off the pace of the chasing pack too.

At the halfway mark, Ruel had a gap of nearly two minutes, but this started to be eaten into by Yamaguchi significantly from 60 kilometres onwards, with the gap less than 30 seconds.

But, just as Yamaguchi was catching, Okayama overtook his compatriot and became the threat to the Frenchman, managing to motor into another gear and take the lead at 74km.

He looked the strongest of the contenders and continued to pull away, eventually finishing in 6 hours 09min 08sec, while Yamaguchi eventually took over Ruel with less than eight miles to go to finish in 6:14:22.

According to records, this is the second-quickest time ever over 100km.

The Frenchman continued to struggle and Dutch runner Piet Wiersma smelled blood, benefitting from a modest start to come through for the bronze in 6:15:53.

To add to Ruel's pain, he lost fourth place in the last four kilometres to Norway's Sebastian Conrad Hakansson, and instead finished fifth.

Hot was also the benefactor of good pacing, only clocking through six kilometres as the 12th woman, as her compatriot Camille Chaigneau was almost 90 seconds in front of her leading the race.

Chaigneau remained in the lead at 10km, going through with Finland's Noora Honkala, as Hot remained down the field.

A third of the way through, Honkala was dropped and the Frenchwoman was on her own, with the Lithuanian opponent Gitana Akmanaviciute being the closest, more than a minute off the pace.

Then the Lithuanian started to falter by the halfway mark, as Satu Lipiainen of Finland moved into second and Hot had moved into seventh.

The top two were then separated by just 25 seconds going into the last 30km, with Caitriona Jennings from Ireland and Hot moving into third and fourth, albeit still far off the front.

A turning point was coming at 80km as Hot and Jennings overtook Lipiainen and set their sights on Chaigneau.

Just five kilometres later, Hot took the lead and did not look back, crossing the line in 7:00:45, followed by Chaigneau in 7:03:06, who had enough to hold off Jennings, the bronze medallist.