Brazil's Thiago Braz da Silva caused a huge upset on Monday night (15 August), beating defending champion and world no,1 Renaud Lavillenie of France to win the pole vault final.

It was the host country's second gold medal of the Games, its first in track and field, and its first male athletics champion in 32 years.

Braz flies the flag (Photo: Getty Images/Paul Gilham)

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Braz forgot three early failures, passed on 5.98m and pushed the Frenchman to 6.03m, which he failed to clear twice. The Brazilian's final jump saw him clear that mark to establish a new Olympic record, surpassing the mark set by Lavillenie in London four years ago.

Braz celebrates with the fans (Photo: Getty Images/Paul Gilham)

The Brazilian crowd that had been quiet earlier in the night, quickly rallied to their 22-year-old countryman, cheering him ecstatically and unsettling Lavillenie as he prepared for his final jump.

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Lavillenie seeks solace in his flag (Paul Gilham)

Lavillenie had to settle for silver with 5.98m with the USA's Sam Kendricks taking bronze with a vault of 5.85m.

The Frenchman said afterwards: "Thiago is very strong. He gets all the stadium behind him. I'm a bit disappointed, (it was) not fair play from the stadium. It is the biggest moment of your life. I can't be happy about that. Now I have to wait four years to get back the gold."

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Braz, who joins judoka Rafaela Silva as Brazil's only gold medallists so far at Rio 2016, had not finished better than 14th in either of his senior appearances at the world championships - he came 14th in 2013 and 19th in 2015 - but this victory could well be the start of something special.

The medal is the third success for Braz's Ukranian coach Vitaly Petrov, who trained 1988 gold medal winner Sergey Bubka and Russian Yelena Isinbayeva - winner of the gold medal at Beijing 2008.