Crawley hammer thrower Mick Jones finally came good last night when he won gold at the Commonwealth Games.

Jones, who celebrated his 39th birthday five days ago, triumphed at the fourth time of asking, having won silver four years ago in Kuala Lumpur.

It was his first gold medal in a major championship. He has finished fourth on the two other occasions in the Commonwealth Games.

Jones already knew he had won with the only 70m-plus throw of the evening before he went into the circle for the last time and capped a superb night with a final effort of 72.55m.

New Zealand's Phillip Jensen (69.48) claimed silver, with Paul Head taking bronze for England (68.60) ahead of former Commonwealth Games champion Stuart Rendell, of Australia, in fourth.

Jones said: "I am overwhelmed. I never thought I would win it with 70m and when I knew I had, I relaxed and 72m came out. To win it with that is amazing.

"Now I have won the Commonwealth Games and no one can take that away from me."

Mick, at 6ft.1in and 18-stone, is the gentle giant of British athletics and victory will be popular with his English team-mates.

He is only the third Sussex athlete to win a Commonwealth Games gold following Suzanne Allday (discus, 1958) and Steve Ovett (5,000m, 1986).

Unfortunately, his winning effort was not far enough to secure a place in the United Kingdom team for the European Championships in Munich next month.

Jones said: "To win it with 72m is amazing, I'm just overwhelmed, I'm so chuffed."

Meanwhile, Paula Radcliffe ended her quest for track gold at a major championships with a crushing victory in the 5,000m.

The 28-year-old, who has missed out so many times in the past, destroyed the field and the Games record to win in front of 38,000 fans in the City of Manchester Stadium.

Radcliffe, who produced the greatest marathon performance in history when winning London last April, clocked 14 min.31.43sec to shatter the four-year-old Games mark by an incredible one minute 21 seconds.

She led from the front and this time her rivals could not match her searing pace as she broke her only threat, Kenya's Edith Masai, with four-and-a-half laps left.

And there was more joy for England's athletes when Jonathan Edwards joined an elite band when he completed a golden Grand Slam in the triple jump.

The Gateshead Harrier shattered the Games record to finally add the Commonwealth title to World, Olympic and European crowns.

Edwards jumped 17.86m, the best in the world this year, forcing team-mate Phillips Idowu to settle for silver.