Athletics: Montgomery flies to win as Chambers takes third

Dwain Chambers earned his third victory of the season over the world and Olympic 100m champion Maurice Greene here at the Weltklasse meeting last night, but it was not quite something to celebrate as the Briton – who ran a personal best of 9.94sec in the semi-final – could only finish in third place, two ahead of Greene, but two behind the Other American, Tim Montgomery, who won in 9.98sec.

As so often, Jonathan Edwards proved the only British winner on the night of the so-called three-hour Olympics as he saw off the challenge of Sweden's Christian Olsson, who beat him to the European triple jump title, with a fourth-round effort of 17.63 metres.

The performance of the meeting, however, came from Morocco's Brahim Boulami, who earned himself an additional $50,000 and kilo of gold by contributing a 24th world record to the event's history – and its first in five years – with a 3000 metres steeplechase time of 7min 53.17sec.

The final result in the 100 metres came as something of an anti-climax for Chambers, who finished in 10.05sec, 0.05sec ahead of Greene. The 24-year-old Londoner had earlier produced one of his most impressive runs as he finished 0.02sec inside his winning European Championships time of the previous week, albeit with a 1.6 metres per second following wind as opposed to the 1.3mps headwind that blew against the finalists.

Chambers' opening run – which saw him qualify in second place behind Montgomery, who won in 9.93sec – was doubly sweet, as the man on his right was Kim Collins of St Kitts and Nevis, who claimed the Commonwealth title that Chambers had seemed set to win himself last month until he cramped up during the final. Collins went on to finish fourth.

"I can't complain about the semi-final," said Chambers, who had skipped off the track after that race with a grin so wide his silver tooth showed. "It's the only positive thing to come out of it. It was always going to be difficult against these chaps, but I'll go away from here with a pb."

Greene said after the final. "They ran good, I ran bad," he said. "It's as simple as that. They ran the better race. I'm not injured, I've got no jetlag and I've got no excuses."

Edwards needed no excuses after dominating a competition where he finished well clear of Cuba's Alexander Martinez, second in 17.19, and Olsson, third with 17.18. "I did not take this win as revenge for Munich," Edwards said. "I must repeat I was happy that Christian won the European title. It was unusual that there was no need for me to respond to some longer attempts."

The crowd had caught on to Boulami's opportunity as he reached the bell, and by the time he approached the last hurdle, his face a grimace of effort, the noise was ear-buzzing.

After finishing half a lap clear of a top quality field – second-placed Stephen Cherono of Kenya was timed at 8.05.14, which would have been a world record itself 10 years ago – Boulami sank to his knees on the track with his arms outstretched to the clear, darkening sky as the photographers swarmed around him.

Three of the previous five records had been set here, all by Kenyans. Moses Kiptanui ran 8.02.08 in 1992, becoming the first man under eight minutes three years later with 7.59.18. Two years after that, Wilson Boit Kipketer reduced the mark to 7.59.08. Bernard Barmasai took another chunk off it later that year with 7.55.72 before Boulami annexed the record for Morocco with his run of 7.55.28 in Brussels last year.

"I came here to break the world record," Boulami said. "The pace was slow at one stage so I told the pacemakers 'go, go, go' and they did. It's fantastic. The Kenyans are not dominating at the moment but I'm sure they will be back."

Just to underline the quality of the European circuit's richest meeting, with a budget of SwFr5.5million (£2.4m), Hicham El Guerrouj missed out on his own world 1500m record by less than a second, winning in 3min 26.89sec, which no one else has bettered. He remains in the hunt for a share of the jackpot of 50 kilos in gold available to athletes who win at every Golden League meeting. Defeat in the 100m hurdles saw Gail Devers drop out, but there are still three others beside El Guerrouj chasing: Marion Jones, a 100m winner in 10.88sec; Felix Sanchez, who ran the fastest time in the world this year, 47.35sec, as the victor in the 400m hurdles; and in the 400m, Ana Guevara of Mexico, who produced another world fastest time this season of 49.16sec.

Jolanda Ceplak gave best to Mozambique's world and Olympic 800m champion Maria Mutola, who won in 1min 57.24sec. Battle resumes at Crystal Palace on Friday, when the Olympic bronze medallist Kelly Holmes joins the fray.