Radcliffe banishes Athens ghosts with marathon win
The 31-year-old had failed to finish both the marathon and the 10,000 metres in Athens but she made no mistake here as her bold front-running style saw her coast to her first global track title and give her country their first gold of the championships.
Radcliffe timed 2 hours, 20 minutes, 57 seconds a championships record while Kenya's defending champion Catherine Ndereba took silver in 2hr 22min 01sec and Constantina Tomescu of Romania took the bronze in 2hr 23min 19sec.
"It's just a relief. I knew I was in good shape and I was disappointed with the 10,000m because I didn't run as well as I should," she said.
"But I woke up this morning and felt good. I knew it was a tough course. The last lap was hard and I was getting conflicting information on how far ahead I was.
"It was very important for me. I've been training well and am in good shape and that's what it's all about... It was a good win. I enjoyed it."
Elsewhere on the closing day, Craig Mottram became the first non-African to medal in either 5,000m or 10,000m at the world championships since 1987. He finished a battling third behind Kenyan Benjamin Limo and Sileshi Sihine from Ethiopia who picked up his second silver medal in a week in last night's 5,000m final.
Bronze was as good as gold for the 25-year-old Aussie, coached by Sonia O'Sullivan's partner, Nic Bideau, and the only athlete capable of taking on the Africans on the track this season.
An exciting finish was won by Limo in 13:32.55 which was slower than Eamonn Coghlan's winning time (13:28.53) in 1983 and came at the end of a final lap of just under 54 secs.
Mottram admitted he was pleased to have got up for the bronze medal in the exciting flying finish.
"The first few laps were very slow so I just tried to stay calm," he said.
"Over the last kilometre I stepped up my speed and then I just waited for the last 250m where I gave it all I had."
Olympic champion, Osleidys Menendez, reclaimed her world javelin title and set a new world record at 71.70m in the process as Helsinki lived up to its claim as the home of javelin throwing last night.
Menendez, who won the title in Edmonton and ended up fifth in Paris two years ago, effectively killed off the competition with her massive first round throw of 71.70.
Rashid Ramsey (Bahrain) became the first man to complete the 800m/1,500m double at the world championships when he stormed down the finishing straight to hold off the late rush from the Olympic champion, Yuri Borzakovski, in a flying finish to the 800m final.
Yuriy Krimarenko (Ukraine) was a surprise winner of the men's high jump when he cleared 2.32m with the final attempt of the competition after all the favourites had failed.
Not since the first world championships in 1983 has the winning height been so low that year another unknown, Gennadiy Avdeyenko from the Soviet Union, won.
Tatyana Tomashova (Russia) successfully defended her women's 1,500m title in an incident packed race that saw the disqualification of silver medallist, Yuliya Chizhenko (Russia), for barging Maryam Yusuf Jamal (Bahrain).
Another Russian, Olga Yegorova, was promoted to silver and Bouchra Ghezielle from France was awarded the bronze.
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