(From left) Mercy Nku of Nigeria, Lucimar Aparecida de Moura of Brazil, Jamaican Veronica Campbell, Christine Arron of France, Slovenian Alenka Bikar and Geraldine Pillay of South Africa during the women’s 200m heats in Helsinki on Wednesday. (Reuters)

Helsinki: Failing to repeat her last year’s performance, Anju Bobby George finished outside the podium in the long jump event even though she came up with her best effort of the season in the World Athletics Championship on Wednesday.

Anju improved on her best of the season, 6.54m set up on Tuesday, by coming up with a jump of 6.66m in her first attempt in the final, but that was not enough to earn her a medal.

American teenager Tianna Madison won the gold with a personal best of 6.89 metres. Madison, 19, who recorded the longest jump in qualifying, took the lead from Olympic bronze medallist Tatyana Kotova of Russia in the penultimate round.

Kotova was second with 6.79 metres and France’s defending champion Eunice Barber third with 6.76. Yargelis Savigne of Cuba, with a jump of 6.69, finished ahead of the Indian.

Gale force winds buffeted the athletes during another unpleasant morning at the meet on Wednesday following thunder, lightning and torrential rain in the previous evening. The high winds forced organisers to switch the women’s pole vault final scheduled for the evening session to Friday.

Olympic champion and world record holder Yelena Isinbayeva of Russia had been scheduled to attempt to win her first world title in Wednesday’s evening session.

“I felt like I was being blown backwards,” complained four time world high hurdles champion Allen Johnson.

“I thought I wasn’t going to reach the next hurdle. I hope it changes tomorrow (Thursday).”

American Johnson, who is seeking a record fifth world track title, finished second in his first round heat. China’s Olympic champion Liu Xiang set the fastest time in the preliminaries with 13.73 seconds.

World 100 metres champion Justin Gatlin, who is aiming to become only the second man to win the 100-200 double, completed his sixth race in five days without any problems.

The 200 quarter final was postponed from Tuesday because of the weather and Gatlin showed the benefits of the extra rest by coasting into the evening’s semi-finals with an untroubled second place.

A confident Gatlin, running his sixth race in Helsinki, eased off near the line to finish second in his heat behind Jamaica’s Christopher Williams.

Gatlin, who won the world 100 title by the biggest margin in the championships’ history on Sunday, is striving to emulate compatriot Maurice Greene.

The former Olympic champion is the only man to have won the 100-200 double at a world championships, in Seville in 1999.

Gatlin’s US teammate Tyson Gay clocked the fastest time of the heats while defending champion John Capel and Wallace Spearmon ensured all four US sprinters made it to the semis.

Spearmon, fastest man in the world this year, qualified for the American team after Olympic champion Shawn Crawford decided to run just the 100 because of a foot injury.

Another American, Olympic decathlon silver medallist Bryan Clay, pulled further ahead of Olympic champion Roman Sebrle after the first two events of the second morning.

Clay was fastest over the hurdles with 14.43 seconds to Sebrle’s 14.71. He was also first in the discus with 53.68 metres to Sebrle’s 46.85 and after seven events had extended his overnight lead of 14 points to 191.

Earlier on Tuesday, Cuban Zulia Calatayud secured an unexpected gold in women’s 800. The 25-year-old finished in a time of one minute 58.82 seconds to beat Moroccan Hasna Benhassi into second place with Russian Tatyana Andrianova, the pre-race favourite, in third (reported in Wednesday’s Late City edition).

Defending champion Maria Mutola of Mozambique led narrowly at the bell but Calatayud passed her and powered down the straight to finish comfortably ahead of Olympic silver-medallist Benhassi (1:59.42) and Andrianova (1:59.60). Mutola, the greatest ever women’s 800m runner, came fourth.

American Bershawn Jackson won the men’s 400m hurdles title after defending champion Felix Sanchez failed to finish.

Qatar’s Saif Saaeed Shaheen retained his 3,000m steeplechase title with a victory over his great rival and former Kenyan compatriot Ezekiel Kemboi.

Meanwhile in another development, US sprinters Spearmon and Gay have moved out of the world championships’ village after objecting to an initiation ceremony performed by older teammates.

“They took it as we were picking on them. A lot of them are still big babies,” world 200 metres champion John Capel told reporters on Wednesday.

“We were just having a little fun. The older guys pick on the little guys. The same thing goes on in every other sport.”

USA Track & Field director of communications Jill Geer confirmed on Wednesday the pair had left the village and said the federation was investigating.

Capel said nothing physical had taken place.

“No, no, although we wanted to we didn’t because it’s a part of an initiation,” he said. “:We went out to eat one day and we told all the younger guys they have to go get us sodas and some of them took it that we were trying to bully them and they wanted to call their moms or whatever.