Sturday’s surprise gold by Teesside Tornado Richard Kilty was a hard act to follow but Britain’s relay teams did their bit by bagging a silver and bronze to leave GB & NI on a high in a world indoors championship that came nicely to the boil with a stunning world record.
A long jump silver for Katarina Johnson-Thompson and a 800m bronze for Andrew Osagie added to Kilty’s unexpected gold and Tiffany Porter’s hurdles bronze the previous night, leaving Britain with six medals and fourth place in the medals table.
Britain saved their Sunday best till last with Inverness Harrier Jamie Bowie, who dedicated his medal to his cancer-hit father, helping GB & NI’s men’s 4 x 400m squad to silver in 3:03.49 in a race won by the USA in a new world record of 3:02.13. Jamaica took bronze with a national record of 3:03.69.
With Kinross-shire’s Eilidh Child leading off, bronze went to Britain’s relay girls in 3:27.90, behind USA (3:24.83) and Jamaica (3:26.54).
Five times Child was asked to go to her blocks after an unnerving sequence of faulty starts before the baton was passed safely to Shana Cox, Margaret Adeoye and double Olympic champion Christine Ohuruogu on the anchor leg.
“I didn’t know what was going on,” said Child. “I think there was a problem with Jamaica’s blocks, so I just tried to keep calm. I just tried to switch off and focus on the job I had to do.
“So I am delighted. I really wanted to come away with a medal. The Americans had a really good team. The Jamaicans brought in two very strong athletes, and you never know with the Russians. So there were four teams in the mix.
“As team captain, I’m delighted that we’re taking some medals home. I felt for the team on the first day (after early exits for Laura Muir, Chris O’Hare and others). It affects you when people aren’t performing great and you see them upset.
“With Richard Kilty (gold) and Tiffany (bronze) last night, the team was buzzing again at the hotel and we carried that into today and came away with more medals.”
The rapidly-maturing Child’s able leadership of Scottish and now British teams marks her out for a long and potentially important future.
“I’ve been to championships where I have come off the track in floods of tears and I have been at some where I have come off high as a kite. And as I said about Laura on Friday, it’s about how you learn from these experiences. So hopefully these guys can learn from this championship and build on it,” she said.
Not even two storming legs over the weekend and another 400m relay medal for her cabinet was sufficient to tempt her to change events from 400m hurdles to the flat.
“I don’t think I have the flat speed to be honest,” she said. “My strength is good and if I was ever going to change distance I would go the other way and move up to the 800m but keeping up with Laura might be a problem!”
Jamie Bowie was controversially left out of Britain’s 4 x 400m men’s final team at the 2013 world outdoors in Moscow despite posting one of the fastest semi-final times.
After another blistering run in Saturday’s semi, he was trusted with the second leg between lead-off man Conrad Williams, Luke Lennon-Ford and Nigel Levine and ran an unofficial 46-second dead split.
“I was given the opportunity to show what I could do when the pressure was on and to produce a silver medal and get beaten by a world record is pretty special,” he said.
“This time last year my dad Sandy was diagnosed with cancer in the throat and, when I ran in Moscow, I dedicated that race to him.
“Now that’s he’s on the mend, it’s just great but it really made me take stock. If I wanted success I had to go out and do it and here I am. I have shown I can prove myself with the best guys in the world.”
Silver her first senior medal went also to Katarina Johnson-Thompson in the women’s long jump, with the gold going to France’s Eloyse Lesueur.
Long seen as Jessica Ennis-Hill’s successor in the heptathlon, Johnson-Thompson said she was amazed that her lifetime’s best 6.81 jump had turned her into a world-class long jumper.
“It’s hard to believe,” she joked. “I got my first senior world championship medal but not in my event! I want to make sure that everybody knows I’m a heptathlete and I will be going back to the heptathlon.
“But I’m so happy with a silver medal. I came with no expectations at all.
“The weird thing is that I jumped that exact distance in the world junior championships in 2012 but it was wind-assisted. There’s no wind indoors so I’m glad that’s official now.”
The 21-year-old Liverpool Harrier’s sights are now firmly set on the heptathlon at Glasgow 2014.
In the men’s 800m, Andrew Osagie looked to have missed bronze by the width of his number but he was promoted to third when Poland’s Marcin Lewandowski was deemed to have stepped outside the track and was disqualified.
“It is very bittersweet because I get on with Marcin (Lewandowski) very well, so it’s going to be a bit awkward from now,” said Osagie. “I’m very happy to add to the medal tally, though.”
The gold went to Mohammed Aman of Ethiopia in 1.46.40.
Great Britain and Northern Ireland could not match the record nine medals won two years ago in Istanbul and, over the weekend as a whole, no Briton featured in the finals of the men’s 400m, 1,500m, long jump or triple jump bankers in previous years. No British women made it into the final of the high jump, long jump or triple jump, or into the 400m and 1,500m finals.
UK Athletics performance director Neil Black last night said he was happy overall with the team’s showing, and he highlighted several near misses.
Among them, Mark Sharman and Andrew Pozzi qualified for last night’s 60m hurdles final, with Pozzi finishing fourth in a race won by America’s Omo Osaghae in 7.45 secs.
Asha Philip also finished fourth in the women’s 60m final, which went to Olympic 100m champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, of Jamaica, in 6.98 secs.
The women’s 800m was won by the USA’s Chanelle Price in 2:00.09, just inside the time Scotland’s Laura Muir set in Glasgow in January.
The women’s 3,000m went to world indoor record holder Genzebe Dibaba of Ethiopia.
The men’s high jump was won by Mutaz Essa Barhim of Qatar with 2.38m, and the men’s triple jump gold went to Lyukman Adams, of Russia, with a world-leading 17.37m.