Jessica Ennis won the 100m hurdles in Manchester, although an organisational error deprived her of a PB.
Olympic hopeful wins in Manchester before hurdle error is revealed
Jessica Ennis produced her fastest ever 100 metres hurdles time as she claimed victory in Manchester, although a bizarre organisational blunder meant it did not count as an official personal best.
The heptathlete clocked 12.75 seconds into a headwind to win her race ahead of two of the best hurdlers in the world, Dawn Harper and Danielle Carruthers.
The time was 0.04secs faster than her previous best, but it emerged after the race that only nine hurdles had been set out rather than the regulation 10, meaning the mark was invalid.
Ennis proved to be the strongest regardless of the number of hurdles in the race as she was pulling away from the rest of the field at the finish.
"I am so annoyed. I still had a good competitive race, but I've just not got the result I wanted," the Olympic gold medal hopeful said.
"I can't believe that. It's a great event but that's a massive, massive mess-up."
Technical error
A spokesman for the organisers, Nova International, said: "There has been a technical error and there were nine sets of hurdles out on the course instead of 10.
"We'll conduct a thorough investigation and find out what happened and why and by whom. It's a very unfortunate mistake, we're very unhappy about it."
Ennis will compete in her first heptathlon of the year next weekend in Gotzis, Austria, against her rivals for the Olympic title in London.
Meanwhile in Manchester, Dwain Chambers received a warm welcome from the crowd in his first race in Europe since being cleared to qualify for the Olympics.
The controversial sprinter, who served a two-year drug ban after testing positive in 2003, is eligible for the British team after the British Olympic Association lifetime ban on drug cheats was overturned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
He was greeted warmly when introduced on the startline and went on to finish the 150m in second place in 15.27, with American Wallace Spearmon winning in 14.87.
