The world champions dominated their opponents in a repeat of last year’s World Championship final with Alvaro Granados scoring four goals as Spain raced into a 7-2 interval lead at the University of Southern California.

Spain’s captain Felipe Perrone produced a commanding display notching up three goals, before the defence came to the fore in a scoreless final quarter as they kept the Italians at bay and saw out victory.

For Spain it was a first World Cup gold after five previous bronzes, while Italy have now lost four out of five World Cup finals contested.

A dramatic bronze-medal match was won by the United States 14-13 against Hungary, with the teams returning to the pool after the gold-medal contest following a successful US protest.

After the match had finished in a 13-13 tie following regulation play, Hungary thought they had won when a lengthy penalty shootout went in their favour 18-16.

The US then protested a decision from regulation play which left the teams even in players when the US believed they should have had an advantage.

After reviewing the footage, officials concluded that an ejected player returned to the pool too early and ordered the match to be continued from that point.

The retaken penalty was scored by Max Irving, levelling the scores at 13-13.

Ben Hallock got what proved to be the winner with a goal from two metres out, with 40 seconds remaining, as he made the score 14-13.

Szilard Jansik thought he had levelled with 25 seconds left but was judged to have taken a shot, which he scored, too quickly and it was disallowed, enabling the US to hold on for victory.

In the previous day's semi-finals, Spain beat Hungary 10-8, while Italy defeated the United States 15-12.

In the classification matches, Greece won the fifth-place contest, beating Romania 11-8, helped by four goals from Konstantinos Genidounias.

Olympic champions Serbia won the seventh-place contest, comfortably beating Germany 15-8.