Paula Radcliffe won Britain's first gold medal of the World Championships when she claimed victory in the Marathon in Helsinki.
Front-running after leading from start to finish and shaking off her rivals with a stunning injection of speed after the halfway point to set a new championship record of 2 hours 20 minutes 57 seconds.
Constantina Tomescu-Dita was the only athlete to offer any kind of challenge to Radcliffe, but was blown away by the Briton's turn of pace.
The Romanian ended up being overtaken for second place by defending champion Catherine Ndereba of Ethiopia, who was more than a minute behind the winner.
Although Radcliffe had not won a global title on the track, she had claimed three world half-marathon and two world cross-country crowns as well as three London Marathons and their equivalents in Chicago and New York.
It was a welcome contrast to Radcliffe's fortunes in Athens the year before when she dropped out of both the marathon and the 10,000 metres and also vindicated her decision to use the track race a week before, in which she finished ninth, as a final training run.
There was an added bonus when the British team claimed third spot behind Kenya and Japan with Mara Yamauchi and Hayley Haining in 18th and 25th respectively although Debbie Mason did not finish.
Radcliffe was in control of the race throughout and immediately stretched the field by imposing a testing pace.
