Allan Scott survived a scare to qualify for tonight's 60 metres hurdles semi-finals at the World Indoor Championships in Valencia.

The Scottish record holder looked as if he would fall after hitting the first hurdle but made a remarkable recovery to win his heat.

Given the circumstances, his time of 7.64 seconds was excellent as he dismissed the challenge of three-time former champion Allen Johnson.

The USA's 37-year-old former champion finished 0.03secs behind - with Paulo Villar, of Colombia, third in 7.68secs.

Dayron Robles, a big favourite for a gold medal, crashed out in his heat after a lack of concentration at the start.

Given the recent form of the 2006 silver medallist, there were high hopes he might smash Colin Jackson's 14-year-old record of 7.30secs.

The 21-year-old Cuban, who has a busy European schedule this season, moved to second place behind the Welshman's time when he clocked 7.33secs in Dusseldorf last month.

But today he was left in his blocks and finished the race in last.

The error came just a fortnight after he was distracted at an indoor meeting in Paris, where he lost his only race up to that point in a busy eight-race European schedule.

Stanislav Olijar, the 2000 European indoor gold medallist, won the race in 7.72secs - just 0.01secs ahead of Olympic 110m champion Liu Xiang.

Liu, who has concentrated on preparing to defend his Games title in Beijing this summer, was contesting his first race of the indoor season.

Sarah Claxton clocked 8.12secs to finish fourth in her 60m hurdles qualifier and went into tonight's semi-finals as a fastest loser.

Steve Lewis was eliminated from the pole vault, and Susan Scott and Jemma Simpson both failed to make progress in their 1500m heats.

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