Lemaitre leads French charge

France’s sprint sensation Chris-tophe Lemaitre set up a showdown with world champion Dwain Chambers at the Euro indoors yesterday as French team-mates Renaud Lavillenie and Lesley Djhone bagged gold.

On a day when four of the nine medals on offer went to defending champions, Lemaitre set out his stall for the blue ribbon crown of the 60m, which will be decided today.

Chambers and Portugal’s former Olympic 100m silver medallist Francis Obikwelu both clocked 6.61sec to win their respective semi-finals, but Lemaitre went one better, setting a personal best and European lead of 6.55.

Lavillenie thrilled the crowd by setting a championship record of 6.03m in a pole vault contest that saw unheralded team-mate Jerome Clavier take silver.

And then it was the turn of Lesley Djhone, who has studiously failed to gain any individual plaudits since anchoring the French 4x400m relay team to world outdoor gold in 2003.

He broke for the final lap and held his nerve to finish in 45.54sec ahead of Germany’s Thomas Schneider and Briton Richard Buck.

But there was heartbreak for Teddy Tamgho, the Frenchman only managing fourth in the long jump in which Germany’s Sebastian Bayer defended his title with a best of 8.16m.

Other athletes to retain their crowns were Britain’s Mohammed ‘Mo’ Farah (3,000m) and Russian high jumper Ivan Ukhov.

In women’s field , Anna Avdeyeva continued Russia’s gold rush with victory in shot put (18.70m), while Italy’s Simona La Mantia wrapped up the triple jump (14.60m).

On the track, Czech Denisa Rosolova produced a last-gasp spurt to claim the 400m crown while Yelena Arzhakova garnered Russia’s third medal of the day in the 1,500.

Ukrainian duo Mariya Ryemyen and Oleysa Povh headed the timings in the women’s 60m semi-finals, the latter clocking a European lead of 7.13sec.

Malta’s Diane Borg took part in the 60m event. She was seventh in her heat in 7.69 seconds, equalling her fastest time of the year.