20th July 2013 10:11
Parshin pushed away from Spain's 2012 World Junior fifth-placer Alvaro Martin and Italy's under 23 champion Vito Minei to claim the title in 4:01.55 after a pulsating race.
At one stage Martin and Minei had trailed Parshin and his Russian teammate Nikolay Markov by 50 metres, but Martin's determined efforts in the second half the race brought them back into contention only to be foiled by the Russian's finishing speed over the last lap and a half.
Minei won the battle for the minor medals, pulling away from Martin to take silver in 41:08.76, more than 40 seconds inside his PB. Martin produced his best performance of the year to claim bronze in 41:50.88 while Markov was rewarded for his early front-walking with a PB in fourth of 41:50.88.
For Parshin, his victory was vindication of a five-year journey to join Russia's army of top walkers.
'I have done track walking for the last five years now,' he said. 'I tried all the events before but now it seems that I have found the right one. I really like this event, and I want to say thank you to the city of Rieti which is awesome and gave us great moments.'
It was a great moment for Minei too, who had hoped for fourth or fifth, while Martin described his medal as 'a beautiful thing'.
'I really did not expect this medal,' said Minei. 'When I saw the Russians start very fast I knew they would suffer the last part of the race because they're not used to the heat. I come from Mottola, in the south of Italy, and the heat is a friend of mine.'
Martin said: 'My main aim for the future is to be experienced enough to be competitive in Rio 2016. Rieti 2013 was an important objective to reach.'
Likhanov holds decathlon lead
Personal bests in the long jump and shot gave Yevgeniy Likhanov of Russia a healthy lead in the decathlon after three events. The Russian has 2631 points, with Germany's Tim Nowak second on 2503. Vadym Adamchuk of Ukraine is third with 2480.
All but six of the 20 decathletes started with 100m PBs, Philipp Menn the best of the lot with 10.74. The German led Sweden's Fredrick Ekholm and Aleksey Cherkasov of Russia to their first sub-11 times.
Likhanov leapt to the lead with a 7.54 long jump while Menn's PB of 7.27 kept him in second ahead of Ekholm. Pre-event favourite Cherkasov was 54cm below his best with 6.81 and slipped back to 11th before improving to seventh after the shot.
Nowak moved from seventh to second with a put of 15.54, 65cm beyond his previous best, while Likhanov threw 15.36 to stay in the lead. Adamchuk advanced from sixth to third just eight points ahead of Menn.
Field event favourites qualify with ease
Sweden's Sofi Flinck wasted little effort booking her place in the women's javelin final. The World Junior champion has exceeded 60m this year and is a prodigious favourite for gold here.
She needed only a single wrist-flicking effort of 53.19 this morning as Germany's Christin Hussong topped the qualifiers with 57.01.
Ekaterina Starygina of Russia was thought to be Flinck's only real threat, but the Russian missed out with a best of 48.01, more than 10 metres short of her season's best.
Róbert Szikszai also expended minimum energy in his qualifying for the men's discus final. The event started at 9:30 and by 9:32 the Hungarian favourite had already booked his place with a first throw of 57.67, well beyond the 56 metres needed to go through.
Croatia's shot silver medallist from Thursday evening, Filip Mihaljevic, soon followed with 60.71 as all the likely medallists safely negotiated their passage. Britain's Nicholas Percy also showed good form, throwing 60.63 while Bosnia's shot champion Mesud Pezer maintains hopes of a second medal. He qualified third with 58.62.
With just three of the 15 competitors to be eliminated, and only 14.20 needed to go through, qualifying for this afternoon's women's shot final was hardly an onerous task for the two favourites, Türkiye's Emel Dereli and Sophie McKinna of Britain.
Dereli plopped her first out to 16.77 while McKinna's landed at 15.83 – job done for both. Fanny Roos of Sweden was the next longest with 15.55.
Germany's Malaika Mihambo was the best of the women long jumpers with 6.64. Maryna Bekh of Ukraine and Britain's World Junior bronze medallist Jazmin Sawyers also showed good form with 6.32 and 6.38 respectively, while Teresa Carvalho broke Portugal's junior record with 6.35.
Italy's triple jump heroine Ottavio Cestonaro has hopes of a second medal after she qualified with 6.10 while Ukrainian Bohdan Melnyk just made it after a below par 6.08.
Russia set to rule the relay
Russia were the quickest qualifiers from the men's 4x400 relay semi-finals. They led the first race at each changeover before individual champion Pavel Ivashko brought the baton home in 3:07.78 with Britain a stride or two behind.
France won the second semi in 3:09.75 just ahead of Poland who finished second without their 400m silver medallist Patryk Dobek. Croatia initially finished third in a national junior record of 3:09.93 only to be disqualifed. Hungary moved up to third and Türkiye's NJR of 3:12.01 got them into the final as fastest losers.