On a wet night before another capacity crowd of 91,000, Idowu produced his best jump of the year to lead with 17.62 metres after the third round, only to see Portugal's Nelson Evora then leap 17.67m in the next round.

 

It was the first defeat of 2008 for the 29-year-old Londoner,w ho was competing in the Olympic final for the third consecutive Games.

 

He said: "It's not what I wanted but I'll take it.

 

"It was a tough competition, really close in the end.

 

"It hurts, I'm upset, I clearly need to achieve a lot more.

 

"I just fell short.

 

"It's been a long road, it's my first major outdoor medal.

 

"I shouldn't be complaining, a lot of people would dream of being in the Olympic Games, let along picking up a medal, but I don't want to be content with a silver medal.

 

"I've just got to keep improving. It would have taken an outdoor PB (to win the gold) but I've been in such great form this year I believed I could do it."

 

Matching his personal best of 17.68m would have given Idowu gold, but Idwou was unable to improve in the final two rounds.

 

Leevan Sands of the Bahamas claimed bronze with 17.59m while Britain's Larry Achike was seventh.

 

Achike said: “On the day maybe the better guy did win.

 

“Phil’s got the ability to jump a lot further, he just didn’t bring it on the day."

 

It was Britain's fourth medal of the athletics programme and the team's 41st overall, which is made up of 17 gold, 12 silver and 11 bronze, keeping them in third spot overall behind super-powers China and United States and narrowly ahead of Russia.