Sebrle finally gets his decathlon gold

World record holder Roman Sebrle underlined his dominant status in world decathlon by taking gold in the European championships on Thursday.

The 27-year-old Czech, Olympic silver medallist in Sydney two years ago, secured his first major track and field title with a combined total of 8,800 points over the two days of competition in Munich.

"I wanted to break the championship record and missed it by 11 points," Sebrle said.

"That's the only thing that makes me a bit sad. Otherwise I'm happy to gain my first big outdoors title."

Sebrle, also the current world indoor champion, is the only man in decathlon history to have passed the magic 9,000 points barrier, when he set a world record of 9,026 in Gotzis, Austria in May last year.

Defending European champion Erki Nool from Estonia, who won Olympic gold in Sydney, took silver with 8,438 points while Russia's Lev Lobodin won bronze with 8,390 points.

Sebrle went into the second day of action with a 183 point lead over Nool after setting a season's best time of 10.83 seconds in the 100 metres on Wednesday.

He achieved another season's best on Thursday when clearing 5.10 metres in the pole vault, equalling his personal best effort.

The disappointment of the competition was three-times world champion Tomas Dvorak.

The out-of-form Czech pulled out of the event after the pole vault competition on Thursday.

"It's my fault, I didn't deserve to compete well here," he said.

"That's my fate. This is the end of a very sad year for me, the worst since 1992. I don't think I'll still be around at the next Europeans."