Brits Shine At Birmingham Diamond League

A first Diamond League meeting to be held in Birmingham brought the best out of the British athletes as Dai Greene, Mo Farah, Jenny Meadows and Phillips Idowu all enjoyed victories last night.

It has already been a great year for Greene over the 400m hurdles as he has shown that he could be a real danger at the world championships later this year.

Green took the scalp of American Bershawn Jackson as he crossed the line in 48.20 - consistently starting to win high profile races.

Speaking to the BBC after the race Greene said: "I was so happy to win and get a season's best in such horrible conditions.

"It's only the second time I've ever beaten Bershawn - I need to be competitive with these guys, and I'm at the top at the moment."

It's also been a great season for Mo Farah so far as he set a new British and European record at the Diamond League meeting in Eugene last month.

He lined up against a tough field in the 5,000m last night, which included possible world champions threat Imane Merga.

But a fifty four second final lap saw him pull away from the rest of the field to win in 13:06.14, his training partner Galen Rupp finishing in second.

Phillips Idowu was looking to put the disappointment of losing to Teddy Tamgho in the triple jump two weeks ago in Lausanne as the pair prepared to face one another again.

Tamgho leapt to an impressive 17.91m a fortnight ago - beating Phillips by around half a metre. But in front of a British crowd it was Phillips who came out on top last night.

The cool and wet conditions appeared to hamper Tamgho as he failed to jump over 17m and had three no jumps.

Phillips leapt out to 17.54  in the third round to take the win - this head to head looks set to be one of the most exciting of the world championships in August.

Just two days after racing at the Diamond League meet in Paris, Jenny Meadows was back in action over 800m.

And it was a hard fought race from the Brit as she held off the competition to take the race on the line in  2:02.06.

Asafa Powell was also in action over 100m as he sprinted to victory in a time of 9.91 seconds - two false starts clearly effecting his start - as he demonstrated once again that he could give Usain Bolt a run for his money in Dageu.

FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw