Jamaican veteran Brigitte Foster-Hylton ran a season's best 12.51secs to finally claim gold in the women's 100m hurdles at the world athletics championships on Tuesday.

The 34-year-old, who won world bronze in Helsinki in 2005 and silver in Paris in 2003, finally secured gold at Berlin's Olympic Stadium.

She edged out Canada's Olympic bronze medallist Priscilla Lopes-Schliep who upgraded her bronze in Beijing to a silver here when she ran 12.54secs while Delloreen Ennis-London took third in 12.55.

Foster-Hylton initially danced a jig of delight with Lopes-Schliep when the pair realised they had both medalled, but the Jamaican then slumped to the track as her emotions got the better of her.

"There is a story behind that," explained Foster-Hylton who admitted she was so disillusioned about missing out on a medal in Beijing that only a talk from her coach stopped her retiring after the last Olympics.

"The girls had been running so fast that when I visualised the race, I decided to close my eyes and power through to the finish.

"I actually crossed the line with my eyes closed and it was Priscilla who told me I had won.

"That is why I celebrated with her.

"Us Jamaicans have a history of sprinters, we have never had a gold medal at world level at this event, so this is a real pleasure and I embrace that.

"I owe all this to my coach, I was so down and disappointed after coming home from Beijing without a medal that I was ready to retire.

"My coach talked me out of quitting and I must admit I owe all of this to him, otherwise I would not be up here now."

Her delight was in sharp contrast to both Beijing silver-medallist Sally McLellan from Australia and Olympic gold medallist Dawn Harper of the United States.

Harper had earlier scorched into the final with a personal best in Wednesday evenings semi-final when she flew over the hurdles in 12.48sec to throw down the gauntlet to her rivals.

But in the final, two and a half hours later, she could only clock 12.81sec to finish seventh while McLellan finished a disappointing fifth in a time of 12.70sec.