Great Britain yesterday celebrated their biggest medal haul in World Indoor Championship history.
That feat was made to seem even more remarkable given that Mo Farah had his medal effectively taken away from him by the officials.
Farah finished fourth in a physical 3000 metres final in Istanbul, but was promoted to third when, prompted by UK Athletics head coach Charles van Commenee, the race referee agreed that Kenya's Edwin Soi had been guilty of obstruction. That was briefly reflected in the official medal table, but was then overturned following an official appeal from the Kenyan team, which could not be challenged further under IAAF rules.
"For me it was clear," Van Commenee said. "I have studied the footage many times and the referee agreed, so that's why he changed the result. I feel pretty stuffed, really."
Farah was similarly perturbed by the decision. "For a minute I did think they'd awarded me the bronze medal, but I'm disappointed no matter what," Farah said.
"I personally think that I was obstructed and I couldn't get out. But that was only my opinion; that's what referees are for."
However, five medals on the final day took the team's tally to nine – surpassing the total of seven achieved in Birmingham in 2003 – with the highlight a thrilling gold for the women's 4x400m team of Shana Cox, Nicola Sanders, Christine Ohuruogu and Perri Shakes-Drayton.
The men's team of Conrad Williams, Nigel Levine, Michael Bingham and Richard Buck also claimed silver, while there were bronze medals for Shara Proctor in the long jump, Andrew Osagie in the 800m and Holly Bleasdale in the pole vault.
In the women's relay, Britain were down in third place when Ohuruogu took the baton, but the Olympic champion signalled a welcome return to form with a storming leg to hand over in first place to hurdles specialist Shakes-Drayton. She held on bravely, sealing gold by 0.03 seconds.
"Training's been going well so I'm just happy that I've come out and we've won a gold medal," said Ohuruogu, who has suffered from injuries and a loss of form since winning Olympic gold in Beijing in 2008. "I didn't really want to come here, I don't like indoors very much. I knew if I didn't run well, Lloyd [Cowan, her coach] was going to kill me anyway."
There was further success in the women's pole vault where world record holder Yelena Isinbayeva needed just two vaults to win gold, with Holly Bleasdale taking bronze, although she only cleared 4.75m at the second attempt. "I'm really, really happy with my first major medal. I'm so excited," Bleasdale said. "But me being so happy meant I didn't focus enough and only really attacked it on my last attempt. I know I can improve on that."
In the long jump, Shara Proctor had to settle for bronze despite leading with her first jump, while Andrew Osagie made a late burst down the home straight to claim third place in the 800m, which was won by Ethiopia's Mohammed Aman.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article