Athletics: Britain stay on course to hit modest targets

On a night when the Kenyans enjoyed a memorable double on the track in the Nagai Stadium, Great Britain struck one of their twin targets with five days of the World Championships to go. While Janeth Jepkosgei raced to an historic gold in the 800m final to earn Kenya their first global success in a women's middle distance event, and Brimin Kipruto led a 1-2-3 in the men's 3,000m steeplechase, Tasha Danvers-Smith became the latest British athlete to make it into a final.

In doing so, as runner-up to Australia's Jana Rawlinson in the first of three 400m hurdles semi-finals, the Los Angeles-based Londoner took the Great Britain tally of qualifiers for finals or top-eight places in straight finals to eleven. That accounted for one of the targets identified by Dave Collins, the UK Athletics performance director. Two more medals remain required to complete the GB objectives.

The sixth fastest qualifier for tomorrow's final, with a season's best of 54.08sec, Danvers-Smith is unlikely to provide one of them.

Rawlinson is a resident of Loughborough for six months of the year. The 24-year-old's re-emergence from motherhood in potential world-beating shape does rate as something of a British success story. She is coached by her husband, Chris Rawlinson, who won Commonwealth gold for England as a 400m hurdler.

Tim Benjamin advanced to the 400m semi-finals, but Martyn Rooney and Andrew Steele fell short.