Australia’s Jared Tallent has been passed in the late stages of the race to finish with the silver medal in the men’s 50km walk on day 14 in Rio.

French world record holder Yohann Diniz went away from the field from early on, and built his lead up to one minute 40 seconds.

But he pulled to the side of the road with stomach problems, then rejoined the race before collapsing at the 2 hour 45 minute mark. He finished back in the field.

Tallent led the field inside the final five kilometres amid the stifling heat of the Rio morning, but he was unable to hold off the storming finish of Slovakian world champion Matej Toth, who won gold in a time of 3 hours, 40 minutes and 58 seconds.

Jared Tallent totally in control, looks like he’s enjoying this now #Rio2016 pic.twitter.com/UzBualMXDX

— Alister Nicholson (@AlisterNicho) August 19, 2016

“I wished the race finished a couple of laps earlier. I probably went a little bit early.

“Just didn’t have the legs today. Gotta be happy with silver.

“I was feeling good [when making a break at the 40km mark] but it caught up with me a couple of laps later.”

Japan’s Hirooki Arai was the bronze medallist in 3:41.24.

Another Australian, Chris Erickson finished 10th in 3:48:40.

The silver to Tallent, who finished 18 seconds adrift of Toth in 3:41.16, is his fourth Olympic medal and it follows the belated gold he was awarded earlier this year.

He had been second across the line behind Sergey Kirdyapkin at the London Olympics in 2012, but the Russian was disqualified four years later because of doping offences.

The 31-year-old Tallent was given the gold medal at a ceremony in Melbourne in June.