Athletics: Zelezny carves out a world record: Britain's world champions find welcome home party overshadowed by further advance in the javelin

FITTINGLY enough in the self-styled home of British cutlery, the track events at yesterday's McDonald's Games here proved to be a carve-up for Britain's returning world champions. Linford Christie, Colin Jackson and Sally Gunnell all tucked in to provide the sell-out crowd of 25,000, and the television audience of as yet uncounted millions with the appropriate victories.

It was a different story in the field events, where three of Britain's bronze medallists from Stuttgart, Jonathan Edwards, Steve Smith and Mick Hill faced the most challenging competition of the afternoon in the triple jump, high jump and javelin respectively.

Edwards produced a final effort of 17.27 metres to defeat the world gold and silver medallists, Mike Conley and Leonid Voloshin. Smith jumped 2.33 despite suffering from a sore back, and was beaten by Javier Sotomayor, Cuba's world champion and record holder who cleared 2.36 without failure. Hill was left with mingled feelings of frustration and admiration as he watched Jan Zelezny, the Czech world and Olympic champion, break his own world record with a throw of 95.66 metres.

It was the second huge throw of the day for Zelezny - his previous effort reached 95.34, just short of the mark of 95.54 he set in Pietersburg, South Africa in April.

Zelezny, a captain in the Czech Army, is a comparatively slight man who relies upon speed and co-ordination to produce throws which have established a strong claim for him to be regarded as the greatest javelin thrower ever. In Stuttgart he had used a Sandvik Orbit javelin, with a snub nose but here, he simply hoicked out a different Sandvik model from the common stock provided. Bang. Ninety-five metres.

Hill, who was presented yesterday with the World Championship bronze medal he earned belatedly after the third-placed thrower in Stuttgart tested positive for drugs, said after finishing second with 85.62m that he felt grateful just to have been present on such a day.

'When Jan first threw 95 metres, we other throwers thought it was a Bob Beamon effort,' Hill said. 'It was that good. Apart from Jan, only Steve Backley and Seppo Raty have thrown over 90 metres. So it was a privilege to be here to see it.

'For such a slight guy to do that was very, very special. It makes you realise that you don't have to be massively strong to throw that far. You are looking at the best in the world, ever. If we had been throwing with the old-style javelins, you would have seen 110, 115 metres today.'

Zelezny, who said he had been in doubt about competing in Stuttgart after being unable to raise his arm 10 days before competition began, put some of the credit for his performance down to his back, which for once was not troubling him. He would not be drawn on what the meeting promoter, Andy Norman, would be offering him by way of a world-record bonus. 'Maybe a little bit of money,' he said. On being reminded that Sergei Bubka gets dollars 30,000 (pounds 20,000) for breaking the pole vault world record, he replied: 'But my name is Jan Zelezny.'

Britain's world champions were presented to the Sheffield crowd in red and black robes and golden crowns - their original wheeze of appearing as Batman, Robin and Catwoman was frustrated by copyright problems in the United States.

Pretenders to those crowns were sufficiently thin on the ground to give them little difficulty, although Jackson, who won his 110m hurdles in 13.09sec, had plenty to handle in the form of Britain's Tony Jarrett and Tony Dees, of the United States, who finished second and sixth respectively behind him in Stuttgart. Racing in gold lame outfits - it was that kind of an occasion - they did all that could have been asked of them.

Christie, who is hoping that there will be a 100m race for him in the grand prix final at Crystal Palace on 10 September, even though it is not a grand-prix event this year, ran what would have been an all-comers' record of 9.99sec had it not been for an illegally high following wind.

Gunnell finished 12 metres clear of a field which, bizarrely, included the world heptathlon champion Jackie Joyner-Kersee, in a time of 54.25sec. - Tom Buckner, England's leading steeplechaser, yesterday accused the organisers of the McDonald's Games of ignoring distance runners. 'It is no use lamenting the falling standard of our distance running if we're not given a chance to compete along with the rest of the team,' Buckner said. 'I purposely restricted my competitions early on to peak for the World Championships and produce my best time of the season there. Now it seems there are no opportunities left for me.'

Results, Sporting Digest, page 25

(Photograph omitted)