Taylor-made victory surpasses feats of Claye

Christian Taylor's leap of 17.81 metres secured gold in the triple jump last night. The 22-year-old American, who is the reigning world champion in the event, surpassed his US team-mate, Will Claye, who had already won bronze in the long jump with his fourth jump. The Italian, Fabrizio Donato, came third.

A broken leg would stop most people in their tracks, but not Manteo Mitchell, the incredibly tough American, who ran the first leg of their 4x400m relay yesterday to help them qualify joint fastest, despite suffering the injury during the race. "As soon as I took the first step past the 200m mark I felt it break. I heard it. I even put out a little war cry, but the crowd was so loud you couldn't hear it," he said.

Jamaica, who powered to gold in the women's 4x100m relay in Beijing in 2008, finished second in their heat yesterday after a less than perfect changeover, but recovered to set a season's best time of 42.37 seconds. Their main rivals in tonight's final, the US, won their heat, and also set a new season's best time.

In the women's 800m semi-finals, the South African Caster Semenya cruised through to tomorrow's final, but Great Britain's Lynsey Sharp failed to make it. "I just got in a really bad position in the back straight on the second lap, there was a wall in front of me and it wasn't a clever run," the 22-year-old said. "I didn't execute my race properly."

Uzbekistan's Svetlana Radzivil leads the high jump qualifying ahead of tomorrow's final. The 25-year-old recorded a season's best jump of 1.96m.