Jenny Meadows continued her winning streak on home soil when she retained her 800 metres title at the Norwich Union Grand Prix in Birmingham.

Meadows, winner at the Glasgow International match three weeks ago and the World Indoor Championships trial in Sheffield last weekend, was again in dominant form.

The 26-year-old Wigan athlete forged into the lead after the pacemaker dropped out and increased the momentum in the final 300m of the race.

Meadows went into overdrive in the final 150m and won in a time of two minutes 00.74 seconds to hold off the challenge of Jemma Simpson and Eva Follnerova.

Her turn of pace pulled her well clear of Simpson - the winner over 1500m at the trials who clocked a personal best of 2:01.25secs while the Czech Republic third placer finished in 2:01.46secs.

"I am very pleased with my season so far," said Meadows, whose form suggests she has the ability to reach the World Indoors final in Valencia next month.

"I don't think I am running as fast as I can at the moment. I did come here just to win so I'm pleased with that."

Kelly Sotherton, in her three-event challenge with arch-heptathlon rival Carolina Kluft, had to settle for third place in the opening discipline, the long jump.

Kluft emerged victor with a best effort of 6.46 metres, scoring 994 points. Denisa Scerbova followed with 6.44m to tally 988 points with Sotherton jumping 6.27m for 934.

World record holder Susanna Kallur outclassed the opposition to win the 60m hurdles in a stadium record of 7.75sec.

The Swede may have been shy of the world figure of 7.68sec she achieved last Sunday in Germany, but it was still another impressive victory and very fast time.

"It was good but, I think my start was a little bit worse than in Karlsruhe," said Kallur after easily beating Kellie Wells and Sarah Claxton.

But Claxton, last week's trial winner, will have been pleased at her season's best 8.07sec - just two-hundredths-of-a-second behind the US runner-up.

World 400m outdoor bronze medallist Tyler Christopher also blew away his rivals when winning in a Canadian record time of 45.80sec.

His world leading mark of the year pulled runner-up Chris Lloyd to a Dominican Republic record of 46.02sec with British number one Richard Buck lowering his personal best to 46.34sec.

Kenenisa Bekele produced a world-best performance over two miles with a marvellous display.

Bekele, on the same track where Haile Gebrselassie achieved the previous fastest time, shaved 0.34sec from his fellow Ethiopian's mark when clocking 8min 04.35sec.

Bekele was about a second adrift of the required time at one stage but kept his concentration and with a very fast final 200m lap, achieved his target.

Simeon Williamson added to his claims to be selected to partner Dwain Chambers over 60m at the World Indoors with a superb sprint display.

The selectors will reveal their final picks for Valencia after the entry deadline expires on February 24.

Williamson, although beaten in a thriller by Jaysuma Saidy Ndurea , remains a strong candidate for the remaining place in the British team.

Despite a false start he lowered his personal best by three hundredths of a second to 6.57sec when narrowly losing to the Norwegian, who posted a national record of 6.56sec.

Kelly Sotherton, clocking 8.17sec, flew to her fastest-ever 60m hurdles time when slicing two hundredths of a second from her previous time.

Her victory ahead of Gi-Gi Johnson of the USA and Kluft who recorded season bests of 8.24sec and 8.25sec did not, however alter the positions in the three-competition challenge.

Kluft continued to lead with a score of 2067 with Scerbova remaining second with a score of 2053pts just 18pts ahead of Sotherton.

Sporting Life / Eurosport