BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Veronica Sailer won the women’s 100-metre dash by a neck yesterday, while France continued their strong showing on the track as they took silver and bronze behind the German sprinter.

With Veronique Mang looking set to surge past, Sailer found a burst at the end and stuck out her upper body to get over the finish line in 11.10 seconds to the Frenchwoman’s 11.11.

Myriam Veronique took bronze as France held two positions on the podium for the second straight night after Christophe Lemaitre won the men’s 100 and Martial Mbandjock took the bronze.

Lemaitre is poised to make it a sprint double as he reached the 200 final without difficulty yesterday with a leading time of 20.39 seconds. Defending champion Francis Obikwelu of Portugal pulled out with a right leg injury.

“Tomorrow is possible,” said Lemaitre, who admitted he was tired in the morning after winning the 100 gold on Wednesday night. “Now I need to focus on the task ahead.”

Sailer won the first of two golds for Germany on the night as Linda Stahl led a German 1-2 in the javelin ahead of Christina Obergfoll. Olympic champion Barbora Spotakova of the Czech Republic won bronze.

Phillips Idowu of Britain won the men’s triple jump with a personal-best leap of 17.81 metres.

“I picked the absolutely right time to do it,” Idowu said. “With the world and European championships titles now under my belt, I am just missing one title — the Olympics,” which will be held in London in 2012.

Former Olympic silver champion Marian Oprea of Romania took the silver with a leap of 17.51 metres, while Teddy Tamgho — the world indoor champion who set the third best leap of 17.98 earlier this summer — could only manage bronze for France.

“Physically I was here but not mentally,” Tamgho said after rain then wind came into play at Barcelona’s Olympic stadium.

Aleksander Shustov leapt 2.33 metres to pip fellow Russian Ivan Ukhov — the reigning world indoor and European indoor champion — by 0.02 metres to the high jump gold.

Russia lead the medal count with nine — including three golds — ahead of France’s six, while Britain were next with five after Martyn Bernard’s season-best high jump of 2.29 metres netted him bronze.

Germany, Belarus, Italy, and Portugal all have three apiece after three days of competition.

The men’s decathlon was also decided in dramatic fashion as France’s Romain Barras edged his closest challenger in the final event.

Leading by only five points going into the 1,500-metre run, Barras began pumping his arms 50 metres from the finish line with Eelco Sintnicolaas of the Netherlands trailing too far behind to catch him.

Barras managed his first major triumph with a score of 8,453 points thanks to his second-place finish in the 1,500. Hans van Alphen of Belgium won with a time of 4 minutes, 21.06 seconds.

Sintnicolaas took the silver medal with 8,436 points. Andrei Krauchanka of Belarus took bronze with 8,370 points.