21st July 2013 04:12
The pair had run together, clear of the field for throughout the race but the Briton crossed the line well clear in 8:45.91, leaving the Russian with a hard-earned silver in 8:47.81.
Behind them, Ersin Turk won the battle for bronze in a personal best of 8:54.54 ahead of Germany's Philipp Reinhardt as athletes in places three to eight all set lifetime bests and Jakob Abrhamson broke the Danish junior record in sixth.
Seddon started the race knowing he was the quickest in the field by some 10 seconds, and he took the initiative from the gun, quickly dragging Bakharev away from the rest of the field.
From then on it was a two-man race. They went through 1k in 2:33.65 and 2k in 5:51.26 with the chasers now some 50 metres behind. Seddon sensibly allowed Bakharev to do much of the work, simply shadowing his challenger until they reached the back straight on the final lap.
Seddon made his move 250m out and that was enough. Bakharev was beaten.
Seddon even had time to tug his British vest out, pointing at flag, as he strode down the home straight before crossing the line with his finger in the air, Britain's first European junior steeplechase champion since Paul Davies-Hale in 1981.