A hot but blustery night ended with two crowd-pleasing performances.

First, Ethiopia's Yenew Alamirew burst dramatically past Kenya's former world champion Eliud Kipchoge just 200 metres from the end of the 3,000 metres race, winning in a world-leading, meeting record of 7min 27.26sec which sent his compatriots into a flag-waving frenzy at their gathering point on the bottom bend of the Qatar Sports Club Stadium.

It was a well-deserved reward for the vociferous support of the Ethiopian fans at a meeting which had seen a limited entry from their athletes due to the clashing championships back home.

Meanwhile many of the leading Jamaican athletes were preparing themselves for the IAAF World Challenge meeting in Kingston tomorrow.

A few minutes after Alamirew's flourish, 19-year-old home high jumper Mutaz Essa Barshim provoked sustained applause from home supporters as he cleared first 2.29 metres and then 2.31m with his third and final attempts, thus equalling the national record he had set in winning last year's world junior title.

But Barshim had to settle for third place in the end as Kyriakos Ioannou of Cyprus rose to one more challenge to pass the leader on countback, Jesse Williams of the United States, by clearing 2.33, only for Williams to respond immediately by matching his effort to regain first place.

Three unsuccessful efforts from Ioannou later, Williams's win was confirmed.

There had been a rumble of home excitement earlier in the evening as Qatari runner Femi Ogunode set a national record in the 200m as he chased home the favourite, Walter Dix.

The American produced a world-leading time of 20.06sec which also equalled the meeting record.

But the man in the home colours pushed Dix to the line to record a national record of 20.36sec, finishing well clear of the third-placed Jaysuma Ndure of Norway, who clocked 20.55.

It was promising stuff from a nation busy aligning itself on a bid for the 2017 World Championships.

But the fact that, for all their enthusiasm, there were relatively few home fans in the stadium by the end of the meeting, when the high jump meeting reached its climax, spoke of a cultural factor that will be harder to fix than infrastructure.

Felix's ninth Doha win came in the 400m, where she recorded a world-leading time of 50.33 to hold off the strong challenge of Amantle Montsho of Botswana, who recorded 50.41.

Despite the status of her time, the American triple world champion was not overly excited.

"It is a decent time, nothing special," she said.

"It is a very long season so I just want to take things slowly."

Felix now moves on to the World Challenge meeting in Daegu, and plans to run the 200/400 double at the Rome Diamond League meeting.


Teddy Tamgho had hoped for further great things in Doha, where he set the first of his world indoor triple jump records at last year's World Indoor Championships, recording 17.90 to take his first global title.

The 21-year-old Frenchman could not reach such heights – or rather, lengths – on the night, but he still produced a world-leading distance of 17.49m which was also a meeting record.

A further effort of 17.44 showed that the European indoor champion is in consistent form.

The highly experienced Leevan Sands of the Bahamas took second place in 17.09, with Cuba's Alexis Copello third, recording 17.05.

"Things went well," said the winner.

"I expected a bit more, but with training load in the last week I could not aim for 17.90.

People recognised me and they encouraged me."

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