Double Olympic champion Mo Farah made a winning start to his 2013 season with victory over 3,000m indoors at the British Grand Prix in Birmingham.
Farah moved to the front at the halfway point and left the field trailing in a time of seven minutes 42 seconds.
Holly Bleasdale won the pole vault, while high jumper Robbie Grabarz and 800m runner Jenny Meadows were second.
Dwain Chambers failed to reach the men’s 60m final, which was won by American Michael Rodgers in 6.53.
“Mo Farah is back to winning ways and we didn’t expect anything else. It was a good, solid performance and as much as it was about blowing away the cobwebs, he would have been happy with the time and happy with the win.
“To clock seven minutes 42 seconds straight off the plane is not bad at all and I think he’ll run very well next week in the New Orleans half-marathon when he’s had a bit more time to recover.”
“These guys ran fast and I just wasn’t able to get them at the start,” said Chambers, who has been struggling with a back problem. “That just boils down to not being fit enough and ready. But I got through it injury free.
“It’s been rather difficult because I’m not used to injuries, but as you start to get older and a little bit more mature in your event, these things happen. These are just lesson learned for me and I just have to take this as an experience and learn to improve from there.”
Murielle Ahoure of the Ivory Coast ran 6.99 seconds to beat double Olympic 100m champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce into second in the 60m.
Ahoure was thrilled to break the seven-second barrier for the first time and see off a field that included Fraser-Pryce and London silver medallist Carmelita Jeter.
“I’m so so excited,” said Ahoure. “We didn’t even plan, me and my coach, to run indoors at all. I’m still doing my preparations.
“My goal is obviously the World Championships outdoors, so we’ve just been training for the 100m. It’s so cool to come out here in the middle of training and drop a time like this, it’s crazy!
“I’m so excited. It tells me it’s going to be a really, really good year.”
