Idowu leapt a huge world-leading mark for the year of 17.75m in the second round, which was never approached by David Giralt and Nelson Evora, the silver and bronze medallists.

Giralt of Cuba, a former world junior champion, claimed silver with a lifetime best effort of 17.47m while Evora, Portugal's reigning world outdoor title holder, finished third.

The performance was the fifth best of all-time indoors, eclipsing the previous 10-year-old British mark belonging to former Olympic champion Jonathan Edwards.

Former Middlesbrough athlete Chris Tomlinson saw a world Indoor long jump gold medal snatched from his grasp by Godfrey Mokoena in Valencia.

Tomlinson finally looked likely to confirm the vast potential he first displayed by smashing Lynn Davies's 34-year-old national outdoor record at a small US meeting in Tallahassee in 2002.

But his determined South African rival – a former world junior silver medallist – spoiled his dream when overhauling him by two centimetres with a leap of 8.08m in the fifth round.

Tomlinson took the massive blow firmly on the jaw, which is not surprising considering the disappointments he has endured since emerging as the leading successor to Olympic legend Davies.

The 26-year-old Teessider explained: "I had a reasonable time out there. It would have been better if I had managed to win, but it's my first major medal.

After taking the early lead, he admitted: "I was obviously thinking through the rounds 'Is 8.06m going to be good enough to win it?'

"But if someone had offered me this beforehand, I would have accepted it."

Richard Buck (City of York) finished fifth in the 400m semi-final. Buck was last for much of the race, but with a strong finish picked up a place although his time of 47.60 was well down on his best set in the earlier rounds.

West Yorkshire won both the senior and junior boys team races at the English Schools Cross Country Championships at Sefton Park, Liverpool, on Saturday.

The senior team were superbly led by James Wilkinson (Leeds) who repeated last year's performance with third place.

It was a timely return to form by Wilkinson who had a disappointing run in the recent National Junior championships. This time he ran a fine race and was denied the silver medal by just a second.

Wilkinson was well supported by Jonathan Brownlee (11th), Jack Hallas (Kirklees, 39th), Michael Salter (Leeds, 46th), Geoff Belcher (Leeds, 47th) and Thomas Crowley (Bradford, 53rd), excellent packing in a field of over 300.

In the junior race, Elliott Todd led the West Yorkshire team to victory with seventh place and he was backed up by Max Kaye (Kirklees, 12th), Gordon Benson (Leeds, 17th), Sam Kerfoot-Roberts (Calderdale, 24th) and Sam Crowe (Kirklees, 33rd).

The sixth West Yorkshire man was Alex Hart (Leeds) who finished 109th and this was enough to see off the challenge from North Yorkshire. Led by Josh Schofield, 10th, they had their six counters home before their West Yorkshire neighbours.

In the intermediate section Danny Schofield from North Yorkshire and Alex Bell from West Yorkshire won places in the England team for the Home Countries International in Perth.