Kenenisa Bekele won his third straight 10,000 metres world title on Monday with teammate Sileshi Sihine pacing him and finishing second in a dramatic victory for Ethiopia.

Japan-based Kenyan Martin Mathathi finished third. The Ethiopian duo overtook him at the start of the final lap of the 25-lap race and Bekele broke away from his teammate around the final bend.

The 25-year-old Bekele remains unbeaten in all his eight 10,000m races including the 2004 Athens Olympics [Images].

He clocked 27min 05.90sec with Sihine at 27:09.03 and Mathathi at 27:12.7, short of his world record time of 26:17.53.

Zersenay Tadesse of Eritrea took an early lead closely trailed in his slipstream by Bekele sandwitched by Sihine and another teammate Gebre Gebremariam with Mathathi behind them. The front pack thinned to nine halfway through.

Mathathi surged to the front just before 9,000m with Bekele and Shihine behind him while Tadesse started fading.

The Ethiopian duo chased Mathathi hard before they mounted their own duel in the final lap.

The result helped Bekele close on legendary compatriot Haile Gebrselassie's four successive 10,000m world crowns.

Evora takes triple jump gold

Nelson Evora completed a fairytale win with a personal best of 17.74 metres to scoop the world men's triple jump title.

The Portuguese record holder, a pre-tournament outsider, finished ahead of Brazil's [Images] Jadel Gregoria, who led the world this season but could manage only 17.59.

Defending champion Walter Davis was third courtesy his opening effort of 17.33.

Evora, 23, dominated the competition, hit by the withdrawal of injured Olympic champion Christian Olsson, and was the top qualifier with 17.22.

He led after his opening jump of 17.41 and threw down the gauntlet with a personal best 17.74 in his second effort.

Brazilian giant Gregorio, who stands 2.02m tall, failed to find his rhythm until jump four when he leapt into second place with 17.59.

Crowd favourite Alexander Martinez, who courted strong fan support with his Japan-flag headband, could not ride the wave of popularity and finished eighth.

The triple jump was seen as wide open after Olsson's pull-out through injury on the eve of the championships.

None of the jumps came close to Jonathan Edwards' bionic world record of 18.29 set at the 1995 championships in Gothenburg.

Tikhon wins third hammer gold with final throw

Ivan Tikhon of Belarus snatched a third straight world hammer throw title by heaving the world's best of the year on his final attempt to overtake Slovenian Primoz Kozmus.

The 31-year-old, who struggled with three fouls and marked 80.17 on his fifth attempt, hurled 83.63 metres in the final sixth round, beating Kozmus's third throw of 82.12m.

Kozmus, sixth at the 2004 Athens Olympics, took to the circle as the last man to throw after Tikhon and Slovakian Lobor Charfreitag. But he could only improve his score to 82.29m and settled for silver.

Charfreitag finished third with 81.60m.

But there was heartache for Japan's [Images] Olympic champion Koji Murofushi, one of Asia's few gold medal hopes.

He threw his season's best 80.46m on his final attempt but it wasn't enough to get on the podium despite the home fans roaring him on. He eventually finished sixth.

Another Belarusian Vadim Devyatovskiy, second to Tikhon at the 2005 worlds in Helsinki, was fourth with 81.57m.

Tikhon's winning throw fell short of his personal best of 86.73m set in 2005, missing Russian Yuriy Sedykh's world record by one centimetre.