Athletics: First major title inspires Chambers for Greene battles

European Athletics Championships: Britain's gold medal winner primed for five races against Olympic sprint champion

The broadness of the smile on Dwain Chambers' face said it best, but he nevertheless voiced his predominant emotion after winning the European Championship 100 metres to claim his first major international gold medal on the previous evening. "It was relief," he said.

Relief that the cramping condition which brought him traumatically to a halt during the Commonwealth final last Saturday week had not squeezed his ambition once again. And relief that those who, either privately or publicly, had questioned whether he had the temperament to win big races now had an answer.

The 24-year-old Londoner, whose time of 9.96 seconds was 0.08 faster than Darren Campbell's championship record from 1998, knew what the answer would be within the first 10 metres of a final that was disrupted by three false starts.

"Every time you get pulled up a little bit of adrenalin gets sapped away," he said. "In the back of my mind I was thinking: 'Calves, just don't go on me now'. But I kept my composure, I kept cool, and as soon as I got away after the gun I was thinking to myself 'Yes!' I knew that gold was mine then.

"I hate training. You have to go through so much pain. And even though I have come third in the worlds, fourth in the Olympics, fifth in the Worlds, to me it's like: 'No, I don't train for fourth or fifth, I train for gold.'

"It was different when I won a bronze at the 1997 World Championships because I was just coming through and I was pleased about it. But that doesn't compare with the feeling of winning gold. There's no greater feeling than that. It's taken four years of work to get here, but this is what I have always wanted.

"My neck was on the line here. If I didn't do it this time you guys in the press were going to kill me. But now I have it makes me more confident about myself."

Self-confidence is essential for Chambers at this point as he looks forward to six more races before the end of his season, five of which are scheduled to involve meeting the world and Olympic champion, Maurice Greene.

Chambers has a 2-1 record over the American this season, having beaten him at the International Association of Athletics Federations' Golden League meeting in Oslo and the Norwich Union Classic at Sheffield. Starting at next Friday's Golden League meeting in Zurich, that score should shift one way or another in a sequence of venues – Crystal Palace, Brussels, Berlin, Madrid – for the World Cup finals – and Paris, for the IAAF Grand Prix final.

"I've worked hard to improve this year," Chambers said. "When Maurice didn't get selected for the 1996 Olympics he moved to California to work with John Smith and become a better athlete. That's what I've done by changing my routine this year and spending some time training in the States. I believe I can only get quicker now, and I'm ready to go into battle with Maurice."

Meanwhile, Jade Johnson, a bemused winner of the long jump silver here, is also revising her own capabilities after proving to be an athlete from the top rank. "I still can't believe what I did," said Johnson, who set two personal bests, finishing at 6.73 metres, in a competition won by this year's world No 1, Tatyana Kotova of Russia.

"Ever since I was little I have wanted to go to the Olympics and win, and yesterday just reminded me of that," she said. "Seven of the world's top 10 were there, but I've shown I can keep my cool and come up with a medal. Kotova has jumped 7.42 this year, but I like to think I gave her a little bit of a scare. I would like to think I could scare her a little bit more at the World Championships."

A large part of the thrill for Johnson was the fact that she had beaten her idol, Germany's double Olympic champion Heike Drechsler, on her home territory. "I wanted her to win here because I didn't think I was going to get a medal," she said. Johnson knows better now.