Athletics: Chambers supplies damp squib after the storm

Sprinter withdraws from relay after disappointing start for Britain on first day of weather-battered World Cup

It wasn't quite lightning striking for a second time, but the British men's team's fourth challenge for the IAAF World Cup started like the first one had begun – held up by the rain in Spain.

The storm that broke in Barcelona back in 1989 left the track submerged and rivulets of liquified concrete coursing through the stands of the half-built Montjuic Stadium. The hailstorm that struck Madrid's La Comunidad Stadium last night had the athletes and the crowd running for cover and the gentleman on the public address system playing "Splish splash, I was taking a bath". It took 50 minutes for the storm to pass and the track to be mopped but there was the dampest of squibs to follow for the British team. Even with Tim Montgomery, the new world record holder, restricting himself to a seat in the stands, Dwain Chambers found himself treading metaphorical water in the men's 100 metres.

Slow to rise from his starting blocks, the Belgrave Harrier never got into gear, let alone into the battle for first place. He crossed the line fifth in 10.16sec, 0.29sec slower than the European record he equalled in Paris last Saturday in the wake of Montgomery's 9.78sec world record run.

As the Nigerian Uchenna Emedolu celebrated his surprise 10.06sec victory, Chambers dashed past the bank of reporters waiting to speak to him without breaking his stride

He later announced his withdrawl from the 4x100m relay, saying: "I'm totally drained, as you can see by my run in the 100m. The relay will be better served by a fresh pair of legs. I think I could have risked injury by running."

Mick Jones in the hammer hardly got the British challenge off to the best of starts, sending two of his attempts crashing into the cage en route to a disappointing eighth place with a best of 66.92m. Tim Benjamin was only one position higher in the 400m, though the young Welshman's time, 45.80sec, was just 0.07sec outside his lifetime best.

Michael East finished sixth in the 1500m, a race that wiped Steve Ovett's 25-year-old time from the record books – in controversial circumstances. The Kenyan Bernard Lagat was helped on his way to a winning time of 3min 31.20sec – 3.15sec quicker than Ovett's run in the inaugural World Cup in Dusseldorf in 1977 – by Seneca Lassiter, his American training partner playing the role of pacemaker to the 900m mark before jogging home a detached ninth and last.

It was a pity that the eight points Ashia Hansen claimed in the women's triple jump could not have been added to the British first-day total. The national women's team having failed to qualify for the quadrennial competition, Hansen was competing for Europe.

She started as favourite, but in a competition held up by the storm had to settle for second with 14.32m, 0.05m behind in the Cameroonian Francoise Mbango, who she beat at the Commonwealth Games.

"I'm a little bit disappointed," Hansen said. "I came here to win." The Birchfield Harrier still ends the season on top of the world rankings, though, with a jump of 14.86m.

Lee McConnell ended her season in style last night. The high-jumper-turned-400m runner took fourth place in her new event, running in the white vest of Europe. The 23-year-old Glaswegian broke 51sec for the first time, improving the personal best she set as the bronze medal winner at the European championships in Munich last month by an impressive 0.20sec with a time of 50.82 sec behind Ana Guevara, Jearl Miles-Clark and Olesya Zykina. McConnell's emergence as a quarter-miler of world class has been one of the tales of the unexpected this season. Less surprising has been the continuing dominance of Marion Jones in the 100m and Maria Mutola in the 800m.

Both ran to form last night, Jones prevailing in 10.90sec and Mutola powering to victory in 1min 58.60sec, a record fourth success in an individual World Cup event by a woman.