Kelly Sotherton admitted she was "gutted" after ending the first day of her quest for Olympic gold in the heptathlon in third place.

Sotherton, bronze medallist in Athens four years ago, recorded personal bests in the first and last events of the day - the 100m metres hurdles and 200m - but was disappointed with her performance in the high jump and shot.

"I am so disappointed, I'm really gutted," Sotherton said.

"I am in much better shape than that. I'm really hard on myself, though. Maybe it's because it's my first heptathlon of the year. I have just not taken advantage of the situation."

That was a reference to the absence of defending champion and undisputed world No1 Carolina Kluft who has opted to specialise in long jump and triple jump instead.

Sotherton looked in good shape after setting a personal best of 13.18 seconds in the 100m hurdles and clearing a solid 1.83m in the high jump.

But the 31-year-old could then only manage a best of 13.87m with her first attempt in the shot this evening, 0.79m down on her personal best, and she didn't manage to improve on that in two subsequent efforts.

She was even unhappy with running 23.39 in the 200m - 0.01secs quicker than her previous best.

"Overall it's a solid performance, it's kind of just average for me," she added. "I'm in the mix but I expected to win that 200 in under 23 seconds. It's another day tomorrow."

At the end of day one, Sotherton lies on 3,938 points. The leader is American Hyleas Fountain who has 4,060, ahead of Nataliia Dobrynska (3,996) in silver medal position courtesy of a world heptathlon record of 17.29m in the shot. Britain's Julie Hollman was down in 33rd place.

Sotherton still has her strongest event to come - the long jump - tomorrow and also her weakest - the javelin - before the 800 metres.

In the men's 1,500m, Britain's Andy Baddeley eased through to the semi-finals with a well-judged third place in his heat, but teammate Tom Lancashire missed out after finishing seventh in his race.

Oslo Dream Mile winner Baddeley ran the first two laps at the back of the pack before slowly moving through the field and finishing in lane three as he battled to find some space on the track.

The 26-year-old's chances of a medal have been talked up by Sebastian Coe, who believes there is no clear favourite in the 1500m.

Baddeley said: "He's right, there is no outright favourite but I am only in the semis and there is a long way to go yet. I'm treating that as the next final so I am not looking any further ahead.

"It felt good and I'm really pleased with that. There has been a lot of waiting and that has been quite nerve wracking, but once I got out there I felt really good."