GOTHENBURG, Sweden (Reuters) -- Defending European champion Francis Obikwelu reached the men's 100 meters final on Tuesday by winning his semifinal in 10.19 seconds.

The Portuguese recovered from a slow start to beat Slovenian Matic Osovnikar into second place by four hundredths of a seconds, with Briton Mark Lewis-Francis third a further 0.07 of a second behind.

German Ronny Ostwald grabbed the fourth and final qualifying place of the heat by finishing in 10.40 seconds.

It was the third heat win in a row for Obikwelu, who is bidding to become the first man to win both the 100 and 200 meters at the championships since Italy's Pietro Mennea in 1978.

Obikwelu's most likely rival, Frenchman Ronald Pognon, made it through by finishing the other semifinal in second place behind Russian Andrey Yepishin, who set a personal best of 10.12 seconds to finish first.

Pognon was only two hundredths behind Yepishin, with third placed Dariusz Kuc of Poland a further 0.09 behind.

Briton Dwain Chambers, who was stripped of his gold from the 2002 European championships after admitting he had taken the designer steroid THG (tetrahydrogestrinone) during that year, just scraped through with a fourth place with a 10.25 run from lane one.

It was the second heat in a row that the Englishman finished in the fourth and last qualifying place.