Anju Bobby George during the long jump qualifiers in Osaka on Monday.(AP)

Osaka: Anju Bobby George qualified for the long jump final despite failing to better her season’s best performance at the World Athletic Championships here on Monday.

Anju managed 6.60m in the qualifying round and made it to the medal round in 11th place out of the 12 jumpers who got through.

The qualifying mark was set at 6.75m, but with only seven athletes managing to achieve that, the next five best performers made it to the finals.

Anju’s efforts were far below her personal best of 6.83m that she achieved in Athens and her season’s best of 6.65m. The final will be held on Tuesday.

Portugal’s Naide Gomes and Russian Lyudmila Kolchanova were the best jumpers with marks of 6.96m each, just ahead of Brazilian Maurren Higa Maggi's season’s best of 6.95m.

In women’s discus throw, Krishna Poonia failed to make it to the final after managing a best of 57.17m in qualifying, way below her personal best of 61.53m or her season’s best of 58.80m.

It was all the more disappointing for Krishna since four of the finalists had qualifying jumps below her personal best. The qualifying mark was set at 61.50m.

German Franka Dietzsch (65.17m) led the qualifiers ahead of Romania’s Nicoleta Grasu (64.26m) and Yarelis Barrios of Cuba (63.44m).

Krishna started with a disappointing mark of 50.52m but improved to 54.38m in her second.

Krishna’s best effort came in her final attempt and could only finish 11th out of 14 throwers in heat B and 23rd overall among 28 contestants.

Ethiopian Kenenisa Bekele motored away to a third straight 10,000m title, while only a freeze-frame could separate Veronica Campbell from her 100m rivals on a dramatic night in Osaka.

The Japanese crowd roared Bekele towards the pantheon of greats, but they were silenced and left gaping at the scoreboard at the end of the women’s sprint.

The naked eye could not split Jamaican Campbell and American Lauryn Williams and nor could the clock — both women were timed at 11.01 seconds.

Such was the cluster on the line that Torri Edwards was first flashed up as winner, yet she finished fourth, behind another American Carmelita Jeter.

For several minutes the four sprinters paced around uneasily, blowing through puffed cheeks and glancing anxiously up at the scoreboard.

Only when Campbell was finally named the winner did she allow an enormous smile to spread across her face as she looked to the heavens.

Also Olympic gold medallist in the 200m, Campbell can be considered the all-round sprint queen.

The 2005 champion Williams took heart from her silver medal after a season of injuries.

Campbell’s victory capped a sensational two days for her imprisoned coach Lance Brauman who also coaches men’s 100m champion Tyson Gay.

Brauman will be released on Tuesday from a federal prison in Texarkana, Texas, where he has spent more than nine months after being found guilty of embezzle-ment, theft and mail fraud charges.

There was no such suspense to Olympic champion Bekele’s demolition of the field in the 10,000m. The Ethiopian blew past countryman Sileshi Sihine coming round the final bend and eased away to win in 27 minutes 5.90 seconds.

Bekele had time to blow kisses to the crowd before turning around to see Sihine come home for silver in 27:09.03. Kenya’s Martin Irungu Mathathi took bronze in 27:12.17.

Bekele moved to within one world championship gold of Ethiopian great Haile Gebrselassie, who won four between 1993 and 1999.

In the women’s 3,000m steeplechase, Russia’s Yekaterina Volkova snapped up gold with a world championship record time of nine minutes 6.57 seconds.