Britain claim third in Portugal

Dwain Chambers claimed victory in the 200m to help Great Britain finish in third place at the European Team Championship in Portugal.

Chambers replaced the injured Rikki Fifton and completed the sprint double.

Andy Turner took the 110m hurdles while the men's 4x400m relay team won the final event to ensure they finished third behind Germany and Russia.

But Phillips Idowu was beaten into second in the triple jump by Olympic champion Nelson Evora of Portugal.

The victories for Chambers have made him keen to chase a double at the World Championships in Berlin in August.

"The 200m is not my specialist event and I didn't know what I could do against these guys," he said.

"I am very tired, the weather is very hot but I have to do this in order to become stronger and faster but this was about getting points for the team. I thought go for it and not to lose."

UK Athletics head coach Charles van Commenee, acknowledged Chambers' contribution and added: "Given his status and the opposition it is not a surprise that he won but then I'm very happy he agreed to substitute at the last minute."

Turner went into his hurdles race as favourite and finished a comfortable winner in 13.42 seconds.

"It was okay, I expected to be a bit faster," said Turner, who finished well clear of Jackson Quinonez of France and Germany's Matthias Buhler.

"Conditions were fine and the track is fast, so I expected a bit more," added Turner, who although no longer receiving lottery funding is determined to continue his career and compete at the London Olympics.

"Anyway the time wasn't important, I just wanted the points."

Idowu was looking to get revenge on the man who beat him by five centimetres in Beijing and produced two strong opening jumps of 17.48m and 17.50m.

But Evora putting in what proved to be the winning leap of 17.59m in the third round and the 30-year-old Londoner was unable to respond.

Olympic 400m champion and British team captain Christine Ohuruogu stepped down to 200m and finished third behind Yuliya Gushchina of Russia and Poland's Marta Jeschke.

The British team captain, who was unwell since her arrival in Portugal said afterwards that she was just using the race as part of her preparations for the 400m at the World Championships.

Van Commenee said afterwards he was reasonably happy with the team's performance.

"Coming to the competition you want to win. But finishing third is acceptable," he said.

"Obviously we had some weak events - I knew that in advance. But there were some positives for me, so overall I would say it was an acceptable performance."

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