There were more tears, this time of the joyful variety, as the competition for gold, silver and bronze induced raw emotions on another eventful day at the World Championships in Seville.

Inger Miller, thriving in the misfortune of her injured American team-mate Marion Jones, wept and hugged her training partner, Maurice Greene, after winning the 200 metres.

And Greene, himself, struggled to fight back the tears welling in his eyes when he completed the second leg of a sprint double which has eluded some of the sport's biggest names in these championships down through the years.

Yet the most moving scenes of all were those which followed the semi-final victory of the Olympic 100 metres hurdles champion Ludmila Engquist in 12.50 seconds, the fastest time this year.

Victory in this instance stretched way beyond the confines of sport as Engquist confirmed her recovery from breast cancer with another astonishing run ahead of today's final.

For Miller, whose father, Lennox won Olympic medals in Mexico in 1968 and in Munich four years later, it was the culmination of a remarkable year in which she has somehow managed to prosper in the slipstream of Marion Jones.

Now, freed of the spectre of the woman who has dominated her specialist events as few others in recent years, she looked invincible in a display of bend-running which might even have troubled Jones on the night.

That was confirmed in the time of 21.77 seconds, the fastest in the world this summer - and this in spite of the absence of any meaningful competition as she opened up a gap of six metres down the finishing straight.

Only Jamaica's Beverly McDonald, running in the outside lane, looked remotely in the same class, but by the time she straightened up off the last curve Miller was away and gone beyond recall.

"To win, even with Marion missing, was great. But to do it in that time was even better. I had hoped to go under 22 seconds but 21.77 seconds. Now that is incredible."

Greene scarcely conforms to the modern breed of tall, powerfully built sprinters, but the end product was just as imposing as he swept round the bends to put metres of space between himself and the two men who threatened his double aspirations, Quirino da Silva and Nigeria's Francis Obikwelu.

Obikwelu's semi-final win in 19.84 seconds suggested that if the Greene was going to nudge history, he would have to do it the hard way. As it happened, it was never like that as Greene took control between the bends and then drove to the line in a seasonal best of 19.90 seconds.

"It's a marvellous feeling to achieve something that's never been done before," said Greene. "I have dreamed of a day like this ever since I was a child." The shadow of the absent Sonia O'Sullivan clouded the women's 5,000 metres final as we watched her arch rival, Gabriela Szabo of Romania, fight off the challenges of the two Africans, Zara Ouaziz and Ayelech Worku, to claim the gold medal.

Inevitably, it begged the question of how a fit O'Sullivan would have coped with the pressure but the certainty is that to win she would have had to reach close to the bottom of her reserves.

This was reflected in Szabo's winning time of 14 minutes 41.82 seconds, which took no less than four seconds off the Irish woman's championship record set in Gothenburg four years ago.

Ouaziz, beaten in each of her last 11 meetings with the Romanian, tried desperately to break her rhythmic stride by chopping the pace in the middle stages of the race. But she could never detach herself from the danger and when Szabo reached the bell, just a stride or two behind the Moroccan, the heavy hand of inevitability settled on it all.

Right on cue, Szabo jutted her jaw, lengthened her stride 300 metres out and in a devastating turn of pace was off on a triumphant solo run to the finish.

"I had no race plan except to run fast," she explained. "I am a runner of instinct and I respond to whatever happens in a race. Tonight's race was so fast, however, that at one stage I was a little concerned."

Fabrizio Mori of Italy found an improvement of more than half a second on his best performances this season when launching himself on an irresistible burst over the last barrier to win the men's 400 metres hurdles championship in 47.72 seconds.

Approaching the last hurdle, all the indications were that France's Stephane Diagana would keep his title. But he hit the barrier hard and with the champion's stride broken, the 30-year-old Italian took full advantage to win by almost half a second.