Tyrone Smith said he missed a “golden opportunity” after failing to make it through to the last eight of the long jump final at the World Championships in Beijing.

The 31-year-old posted a leap of 7.79 metres with his second attempt, but fouled his first and third leaps to finish tenth yesterday.

Smith was one of several jumpers in the elite 12-man field who were unable to fire at a partisan and packed Bird’s Nest Stadium.

Jeff Henderson, who produced a world-leading jump of 8.52 at the Pan Am Games in Toronto, was eliminated after three rounds after registering just one legal jump, while his United States team-mate Mike Hatfield fouled all three of his jumps.

Had Smith produced anything like his best form, he would have been in the medal hunt.

“It was another of these golden opportunities that unfortunately I haven’t been able to capitalise on,” Smith said.

“My final foul was in the neighbourhood of 8.30 or 8.40 and on a good day I could have been in the [medal] mix.”

With so many jumpers struggling with the unpredictable wind, Greg Rutherford enjoyed an unobstructed path to the gold medal with a leap of 8.41 to become only the fifth Briton to hold Olympic, world, European and Commonwealth titles simultaneously.

Rutherford’s second-best jump of his career was 17cm better than second-placed Australian Fabrice Lapierre. Home favourite Jianan Wang, 18, secured bronze with a distance of 8.18.

Smith, whose personal best is 8.22, said ultimately he wasted too many jumps and struggled to adjust to the wind changes.

“It took me a couple of rounds to find the speed I’ve had all season. When I did, it put me over the board,” said Smith, who leapt beyond eight metres four times at last month’s Pan Am Games, finishing fourth with 8.07.

“We had a headwind in the warm-up and everyone adjusted to the wind being in our faces but when we started jumping it switched back to a tailwind, which is why there were so many fouls in the first round.

“It was a rough day and you just can’t afford to waste the jumps that I did. It was a weird final in terms of the guys who missed out on making it through. There was no one left to really pressure Greg Rutherford.”

Before his season ends, Smith wants to break the Bermuda record he set to win gold at the Central American and Caribbean Games in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, in 2010.

“I definitely want to chase the national record,” he said. “It’s been at 8.22 for too long and I’ve been fouling way farther than that all season.

“If I have the opportunity to do a couple more meets this season, I will look to chase that distance with no pressure.”

Meanwhile, Tre Houston, competing at his first championships, did not make it out of the heats in the 200, posting a time of 20.92sec.

Houston identified a few technical deficiencies that he needs to fix after analysing his performance.

“There were a few technical things that I didn’t do well such as my hips being too low and running shorter than my actual height,” he said.

“That’s not a good sign because I can lose four- to five- tenths of a second when I’m running like I’m 5ft 8in when I’m 6ft. I’ll need to fix that.”

Houston believes he can reflect on a pleasing season, having already qualified for next year’s Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, but insists there is plenty of room for improvement.

“My season is done and I will think about all of the things that I did right and wrong,” he said.

“I’ll need to make a lot of changes for next season and hopefully it will all tie-up. I’m pretty excited about next season and I’m going to be going for some major goals.”