HOLLY Bleasdale finished in second place in the pole vault at the annual Great CityGames in Manchester – with the Town Hall as a backdrop.

It was an unusual setting for the Blackburn Harrier who continued her build-up to the Olympics in the competition held in Albert Square.

The 20-year-old from Chorley cleared 4.43m – well down on her British record of 4.87m.

Despite not hitting the heights of her early season performances, Bleasdale was delighted to have taken part.

She tweeted: “Amazing day at the Great CityGames. Great atmosphere, amazing crowd, heights reflect how hard training is at the minute.”

Meanwhile, Jessica Ennis hit out at the officials as an embarrassing blunder denied her a personal best in the 100m hurdles.

The heptathlete produced a fantastic run to win the race on the raised track on Manchester's Deansgate only to be told afterwards that only nine hurdles had been set out instead of the regulation 10.

Ennis clocked 12.75 seconds into a headwind to beat two of the best hurdlers in the world, Dawn Harper and Danielle Carruthers.

She said: “I can't believe that. It’s a great event, but that’s a massive, massive mess-up.

“You expect that all the hurdles will be out and everything’s the way it should be.

“You just run as fast as you can and get across the line and that's what I did, but unfortunately it wasn't set up right.”

Elsewhere, Dwain Chambers, racing for the first time in Britain since being cleared to qualify for the Olympics, received a warm reception from the crowd ahead of his 150m race.

The 34-year-old, who served two-year drug ban for testing positive for a banned steroid in 2003, finished second in 15.27, American Wallace Spearmon winning in 14.87.

World bronze medallist Andy Turner bounced back from finishing last in the 110m hurdles to win the 200m hurdles.

Welsh sprinter Christian Malcolm pipped Great Britain team-mate Mark Lewis-Francis to victory in the 100m in 10.46.