Cordera Jenkins of USA during the Boys' 110m Hurdles heats at the World Youth Championships (© Getty Images)
Both British and American sprinters produced outstanding one-two 100 metres victories which highlighted the second night of finals of the IAAF/ Maroc Telecom World Youth Championships.
Graceful sprinting from Bianca Knight and Ebony Collins saw the US duo push Schillonie Calvert of Jamaica into third place while Harry Aikines Ayreetey and Alex Nelson, won at a canter from Trinidad's Keston Bledman in their contest.
Knight after setting a world leading time for the year of 11.38seconds in her first round qualifier, again matched it with a storming performance to clinch the gold medal.
It was a convincing victory, while Collins showing the strain of being strongly challenged by Calvert just held on to win silver, the pair sharing the same time of 11.44sec. It was quality stuff with Brazil's Franciela Krasucki who had been a dominant player in the early rounds, just missing the bronze medal by one-hundredth-of-a-second.
Then it was the turn of the British pair of top quality speed merchants to display their outstanding ability - which they did with devastating effect.
Aikines Ayreetey not only upset his overseas rivals, but fellow Briton and pre-race favourite Nelson when surging past the world's top ranked sprinter this year in the final three metres.He maintained his breathtaking pace right through the finishing line, defeated his much more fancied Stoke rival by one-hundredth-of-a-second in a personal best time of 10.35seconds.
So dominant were the British duo who led throughout the race - they rose out of their blocks together with reaction times of 0.173 - third placed Bledman was a distant third in 10.55sec.
Their achievement matched the gold and silver medal sweep performed two years ago by the Saudi Arabian pair of Yahya Saeed Al-Gahes and Yahya Hassan Habib.
"I got out of the blocks so quickly I moved to the right but then I got into my stride and then it was just a case of giving it everything," said the Aikines Ayreetey.
He added: "No disrespect to Alex, he was the favourite to win, but I was really confident that I could pull the victory off.
"I've sat in my room for the last couple of days dreaming of winning the gold medal. I knew I could become champion and it finally happened.
"I've come here just been calm and for some reason did not feel nervous. Ijust went out there and did what I had to do."
The newly crowned world champion full of enthusiasm after the win, admits he is eagerly looking forward to competing at the the London 2012 Games.
"That's what all of this is about," he insisted. "Now there's seven years hard work ahead of me and you have to believe me, I'm gearing up to that."
Nelson made no excuses after losing to Aikines Ayreetey who he has normally got the better of in their regular contests over the past five years.
"It didn't look that good - did it. I hadn't all that much left," admitted Nelson who had no answer to his rivals superfast finishing surge.
He added: "I gave it my everything, but the better guy won on the day. I'm totally shattered now - yes a medal a medal but I wanted the gold."
Cordera Jenkins with an immaculate display, flew to a personal best mark of 13.35sec to easily retain the 110m hurdles title for the United States.
Highly fancied Ryan Brathwaite from Barbados who had performed exceptionally well in the early rounds, was runner-up in 13.44sec ahead of rookie Gianni Frankis .
The Briton for the third time in two days lowered his personal best, this time to 13.48sec.
There was a 5000m walk championship record from Tatyana Kalmykova who sliced 16 seconds from the previous figure set by fellow Russian Tatyana Kozlova six years ago.
Kalmykova pulled away from her colleague Elmira Alembekova to win in a time of 22min 14.47sec with the runner-up clocking 22min 27,17sec. China's Chai Xue was third in 22min 34.28sec.
Yordani Garcia of Cuba who took the lead after seven events of the octathlon with excellent performances in the high jump and javelin, won the gruelling multi-event with a world youth's best performance of 6482 points.
Germany's Matthias Prey who slipped out of the top three after a poor clearance in the high jump, pulled himself back into contention, clinching the silver medal with a total of 6282.
Cleiton Sabino the Brazilian who was the overnight leader then also slipped back in the high jump, tallied 6218 to take the bronze medal.
Infield Sha Li the world's top triple jumper performer this year, was only two centimetres shy of that mark when winning the title with a leap of 13.81metres.
But it wasn't an unchallenged victory for the Chinese women whose winning jump in the first round missed Romania's Cristine Spataru's two-year-old championship record by five centimetres.
Estonia's Kaire Leibak flew out to a personal best 13.74m in round two maintaining pressure, but ultimately settled for the silver medal ahead of Cristina Bujin of Romania whose best effort was 13.23m.
Dani Samuels with a fourth round effort of 54.09m, claimed the discus gold medal, the Australian holding off a strong challenge from South Africa's Simone Du Toit who had a best of 52.10m.
Kamorean Hayes personal record of 49.64m never got her into contention, but gave the American the bronze medal.
