Gardener Bursts Into Golden Flower

Jason Gardener caught up with lost time when he won the 60 metres at the European Indoor Championships in the Ferry-Dusika Stadion last night. The Bath sprinter finished ahead of his team-mate Mark Lewis-Francis to retain the title he won in 2000 and put 18 months of misery behind him.

On an afternoon when world records were set in the 800m by Slovenia's Jolanda Ceplak and Svetlana Feofanova in the pole vault, Gardener was just as thrilled to have equalled the championship best of 6.49sec he ran in Ghent two years ago.

Lewis-Francis was relieved to have won the silver medal following a disrupted build-up caused by a misunderstanding over missing a court appearance for motoring offences in Wolverhampton last Wednesday which led to magistrates briefly issuing a warrant for his arrest.

Perhaps carried away with the emotion of the last few days, the 19-year-old world junior champion claimed it was the best medal he had won in his career.

"To be honest, with everything that's gone on this week, I'm surprised I'm going home with anything at all," said Lewis-Francis. He has to present himself at his local police station on his return today.

Even without the threat of jail hanging over him, Lewis-Francis would have struggled to have beaten a rejuvenated Gardener. The Bath Bullet was unbeatable indoors in 2000, when he claimed a clutch of notable scalps, but he has been largely firing blanks since because of a bad back.

Treatment from Dr Hans-Wilhelm Muller-Wohlfahrt, the doctor for Bayern Munich and the German football team, has cured the problem and he is back to his best. He led from the first stride and the muscular figure of Lewis-Francis never loomed large in his rear-view mirror until the last few yards.

Gardener and Lewis-Francis took to seven Britain's tally of medals, their best performance since 1989 when a team containing Linford Christie, Colin Jackson and Sally Gunnell claimed nine.

Though Christie and Gunnell have retired, Jackson is still going strong. He had won the 60m hurdles for the third time on Saturday, when there was also silver for Christian Malcolm and Ashia Hansen in the 200m and triple jump respectively and bronze for the 1500m runner Michael East and John Mayock in the 3,000m.

Jackson's was his 12th gold medal in a major championships, the best by a British athlete, yet he celebrated if it was his first. It was understandable. He thought these days were behind him. Now 35, he had announced his retirement from championships after the Sydney Olympics.

Persuaded to come back only because he ran so badly last year, he is now prospecting for more gold at this summer's Commonwealth Games and European Championships after beating Austria's Elmar Lichtenegger in 7.40, his quickest for three years.

Far more disappointing for the home fans than the defeat of Lichtenegger was Stephanie Graf being beaten by Ceplak in the 800m. In a race so good it evoked memories of Chataway v Kuts or Bannister v Landy, Ceplak led from the gun but was passed by Graf with 100m remaining.

Then Ceplak rallied to pip Graf in the final few strides, winning in 1min 55.82sec, more than half a second inside the 14-year-old world record set in the same arena by East Germany's Christine Wachtel. Graf was also inside the old record with 1:55.85. "I was shivering because of the crowd cheering for Graf," said the 25-year-old Ceplak. "But I kept telling myself if I die, I die."

The other world record was more predictable. Feofanova's leap of 4.75 metres to win the pole vault was the fifth occasion in 35 days the 21-year-old former Russian gymnast has broken the mark.

You've read the piece, now have your say. Email your comments, as sharp or as stupid as you like, to the sport.editor@guardian.co.uk