Silver medal for Ofili on British debut

Ofili was born and raised in Michigan but holds dual British and American citizenship and officially switched to competing for Britain in September last year.

And the 23-year-old marked her debut in style in Paris, breaking the British record held by Jessica Ennis in the semi-finals and then lowering it further in a thrilling photo-finish to the final.

Ofili hurt her right shoulder as she tumbled to the track after dipping for the line, but was pipped to the gold by Germany's Carolin Nytra.

Both athletes were given the same time of 7.80 seconds, 0.09secs faster than Ofili had run in the semi-finals. Norway's Christina Vukicevic also set a national record of 7.83s in third.

"That was really close, I had no idea if I was first or second," Ofili said. "It's a big deal and gives me a lot of momentum for the outdoor season.

"I'm very proud to bring a medal home. I did my best and I'm really excited by the time. It's a big personal best for me."

Earlier in the day, Mo Farah remained firmly on course to retain his title after shrugging off a lengthy delay to cruise into tomorrow's final of the 3,000 metres.

The opening heat was more than 10 minutes late due to a problem with the electronic timing system, but Farah kept his cool to win in eight minutes 02.36 seconds, almost half a minute down on his best time this year.

The 27-year-old, who also won the long-distance European double outdoors in Barcelona last summer, said: "There was loads of waiting around. Leading up to it they were holding us in the call room. Hopefully, it will be better tomorrow, but it didn't really affect me.

"It's just one of those things you have to deal with. There was no explanation but I'm happy. You have to take the heat as the final, but still try to save as much energy as you can. Now I need to eat well and rest well. I don't think I'll hang off the back in the final. If I'm at the back the guys will try put the boot in and get rid of me."

Team-mate Andy Baddeley, normally a 1,500m specialist, also advanced to the final.

UK Athletics head coach Charles van Commenee has targeted an improvement on the four medals Britain won in Turin two years ago, and while Farah looks a certainty, the men's 400m could also deliver success.

Richard Buck and Richard Strachan finished first and second in their semi-final to reach today's final, but Nigel Levine crashed out despite coming into the championships as the third fastest man in Europe this year.

Levine could point to a clash with France's Leslie Djhone at the end of the first lap of their semi-final as a contributing factor, but the 21-year-old also appeared to ease up at the line and was pipped for the third and final qualifying place.

There was also disappointment in the men's 60m hurdles as Commonwealth bronze medallist Lawrence Clarke failed to reach the final after finishing fourth in his semi-final.

"It was technically okay to hurdle five, then it went wrong for no apparent reason," Clarke said. "I didn't even hit the hurdle and I'm in much better shape than that. It was a technical error, my trail arm went for a walk in the park which is something we've been working on."

Tom Parsons and Robbie Grabarz also did not make the high jump final after three failures at 2.22m and 2.17m respectively, while Hannah England and Stacey Smith missed out on the 1,500m final.

However, Jenny Meadows and Marilyn Okoro reached the semi-finals of the 800m - albeit Okoro only scraping through as the slowest qualifier - while Andrew Osagie and Joe Thomas are also into the men's 800m semi-finals.