Athletics: Duathlon ace Morrison takes her seat on top of the world

The 33-year-old from Broxburn even overcame a time penalty of 15 seconds before outpacing Frenchwoman Sandra Levenez in the decisive 5km run yesterday.

Morrison completed the gruelling 55km (34.2miles) race in two hours, two minutes and 48 seconds with Levenez taking silver for the second year in a row 17 seconds back. Australian Felicity Sheedy-Ryan was a distant third with European champion Ruth Van der Meijden of Holland only eighth.

"Cat" also led Britain to team gold ahead of America and Japan with Katie Ingram and under-23 winner Sophie Coleman being the other GB counters in sixth and 13th place.

"It feels pretty good to be world champion!" said an elated Morrison.

"The chance to do a World Championship at home comes around very rarely, so it was a very special victory and a fantastic day. I'm even more pleased for everyone else who came along to support me."

American Gwen Jorgensen made the early pace in the opening 10km run but was soon caught by the pack which contained a pleasantly-surprised Morrison whose training had been disrupted by an Achilles' tendon injury.

"I had the same problem last year, so I erred on the side of caution in training," she explained

"It didn't hamper my running, it was better than I anticipated.

I ran faster than I thought I would and was right up with the leaders."

The 40km bike section, featuring seven laps round Arthur's Seat, soon came down to a wheel-to-wheel battle between the Scot and Levenez, and Morrison admitted: "I couldn't get rid of her!

"I let her ahead of me at one point because I wanted her to do some work, and I was hoping, going into the final run, that her legs were more tired than mine.

"I took the lead straight away, but then accrued a penalty for being a naughty girl, so I had to stop for 15 seconds in the naughty girls' place!"I think I was penalised for getting off the bike at the wrong place during the transition to the run, and it gave Sandra the chance to catch me up.

"I managed to get away again and win the race, so I'm not too bothered about the time penalty now."

Thankfully it proved a minor inconvenience, particularly to a woman who won the Lanzarote Ironman in May despite losing 45 minutes when a bike chain snapped.

Reports around that time had suggested that Edinburgh would be Morrison's duathlon swansong, but the newly-crowned champion promised: "If it fits into my racing schedule, then I'll still do them."

Her next challenge is the Ironman World Championship (3.8km swim, 180km bike ride (112 miles] and 26 mile marathon) in Hawaii next month, although she insisted: "I'm going to let my hair down a bit first!"

Edinburgh University medical student Craig Dale, urged on by an army of supporters with cowbells, earned a silver medal in Saturday's under-25 race, finishing just over a minute behind American winner Greg Grosicki.

"It went pretty much to plan," he said. "I knew I had to be fairly conservative on the first run and really do the damage on the bike.

"I was passing more and more guys, but then the hills really started to take their toll. I know how brutal those climbs are, so I made sure I had enough in reserve.

"The second run was just a case of holding on, and thankfully, I did."