As the blows kept landing and the fates kept conspiring, Andy Pozzi wondered whether it was time to succumb rather than keep dreaming of improbabilities.

Injuries knock both mind and body. The Englishman has more bruises than he cares to remember. But there was, he hoped, a path to redemption to be found somewhere beyond the despair.

All roads, it turned out, led to Belgrade. The 24-year-old, arriving as the world’s fastest, stood firm to take the first British medal of these championships with gold in the 60 metres hurdles last night, running 6.51 seconds to edge out French rival Pascal Martinot-Lagarde by the slimmest of margins.

“It would have been much easier for me to have gone off and done something else, from the point of security, probably happiness at many times,” he admitted.

“I’m here because I really want to be here and feel I have something to give and I wasn’t willing to lose that race.”

Now he will eye further returns at August’s world championships in London. Victory there would be a fine feel-good tale after the 2012 Olympics were cruelly missed.

“It was a very strong field to beat,” Pozzi said. “And to be at the top of European hurdling you have to be at the top of world hurdling too.

Morgan Lake produced a first time clearance of 1.90m to secure a berth in today’s high jump final while Tom Lancashire will chase the 1500m title tonight following a comfortable heat victory in 3:47.37.

“It was all about control and making sure I had something in reserve for the last lap if I needed it,” he said.

“The final is going to be a totally different race tomorrow, but this gave me a lot of confidence and the one thing I have to my advantage is I am strong, and running again won’t hurt me as much as some of the other guys. So I’ll try and capitalise on that.”

Poland’s Piotr Lisek took the championships first gold from an enthralling men’s pole vault, Germany’s Cindy Roleder won the women’s 60m hurdles while Belgian prodigy Nafissatou Thiam added the pentathlon title to the heptathlon crown she earned last summer.

“After Rio people are expecting a lot from me and I only wanted to come here if I was well prepared,” the Olympic champion revealed. “I did my thing and in the first four events everything went great.