Philips Idowu was "on top of the world" after spearheading the British men's team to victory in the European Cup in France.

The Hackney-born triple jumper, who is also world indoor champion, claimed gold at Annecy with a world-class winning leap of 17.46metres, which only three opponents have bettered this summer.

"I needed to get a jump in and win and that's what I did," said Idowu, who is hotly tipped to match Jonathan Edwards's Olympic triple jump gold in Beijing. "I wanted a little bit more but a win is a win and I'm still on top of the world. I reckon I can even put down another one metre."

Idowu quickly went ahead of his rivals when flying out to 17.29m, followed by 17.46m in the third round and a final effort of 17.13m.

But he was quick to point out that not too much should be read into the weekend's performances when it comes to the Olympics.

"The team's morale is high but it doesn't mean we're going to win a massive amount of medals on the world stage. There are a lot of countries who weren't competing. You can't take much from it."

Even so, Britain's men achieved their fifth European Cup success, boosted by further individual victories from Marlon Devonish and Andy Baddeley.

Devonish fought a tough battle in the home straight with Anastasios Gousis before steering clear of his Greek rival over the final strides of their 200m encounter.

"I did my job," said Devonish. "But my race was not very good technically. I had some difficulties to keep my speed until the end. I'll have to work on that."

Baddeley, a revelation when breaking 3min 50sec to win the Dream Mile in Oslo a fortnight ago, showed again what an improved middle-distance runner he is.

Stepping up to 3000m, he zig-zagged up the track past Spain's European 5,000m champion Jesus Espana, who had nothing left as Baddeley edged ahead to win in 8min 01.28sec.

The women, after struggling in the early stages of day two through lack of top-class field event performers, turned up the heat on the track to take third place behind Russia, winners for a 12th successive time, and Ukraine.

No one matched the 400m and 800m victories of Nicola Sanders and Jenny Meadows on the opening day but Christine Ohuruogu, Kate Reed and Jade Johnson with their second places, provided a solid platform for the podium finish.

Ohuruogu, the world 400m champion, powered down the straight to cross the line behind France's defending champion Muriel Hurtis-Houairi in 23.23sec.

Reed, defying the intense heat, recovered brilliantly after falling off the pace with five laps to run to clock 15min 40.73sec and finish second behind Ukraine's Nataliya Berkut.

Johnson, who has failed to consistently reproduce the form which won her Commonwealth and European long jump medals in 2002, again emerged as a world-class performer when leaping a lifetime best of 6.81m as Russia's Lyudmila Kolchanova posted a world leader of 7.04m.