Flops raise London medal fears

Olympic 400m champion Christine Ohuruogu was disqualified for a false start, world 1,500m silver medallist Lisa Dobriskey failed to get through the heats in her event and pole vaulter Holly Bleasdale, ranked ninth in the world, failed to record a height.

Dwain Chambers would have gleefully accepted the offer of matching world record holder Usain Bolt’s performance in Daegu. The veteran sprinter did as much but not in the way he envisaged – leaving the track with his head in his hands after false starting in the 100m.

A target of five to eight medals had been set before the worlds and, while Britain will probably achieve that mediocre mark, few, if any, will be gold. Steve Cram, Britain’s former 1,500m world record holder and world champion, said the team’s showing had been “slightly disappointing”. “We’ve had a couple of false starts, Holly Bleasdale no-heighting, so it’s been a bit up and down. A bit below par,” he said. “Hopefully we can still win a handful of medals here and they will be of a different colour next year.”

While UK Athletics chief Charles van Commenee conceded a month ago the team were underdone and would need every minute of the next 11 months to get ready for London, Cram said there was little the federation could do at this late stage. “It’s up to the athletes. We make too much of systems, this is individual athletes trying to improve themselves. The more help they get from the federation, great, but 11 months out there’s not a lot it can do.”

Sheffield-born Ennis gifted her world heptathlon title to Tatyana Chernova with a feeble javelin throw that dropped 13 metres behind the Russian’s, while Farah blew his chance to become Britain’s first 10,000m world champion. Somali-born Farah had been touted as the man to shatter Kenenisa Bekele’s aura of invincibility in the event and when the Ethiopian, never beaten on the track over the distance, limped out of the race the title was there for the taking.

Farah, however, shot himself in the foot. Despite possessing one of the fastest finishing kicks, Farah exhausted the fire in his legs by striking for home way before the bell. He was hunted down and passed by the unheralded Ibrahim Jeilan. Clearly he had been focusing on one Ethiopian and had not done his homework on the others.

“I didn’t have a clue about the guy and didn’t know what he was capable of,” Farah said ruefully. London 2012 organising committee chairman, and one of the all-time great middle-distance runners, Sebastian Coe accentuated the positives of the British performances. Farah’s silver medal marked progress, while Andy Turner’s bronze in the high hurdles, albeit after Dayron Robles’s disqualification shunted him up the order, was cause for optimism, he argued.

“There’s a feeling that this is a team on the move,” said Coe. “Teams are not as fragile as outside observers think. If you think where we were four years ago in Osaka, this is very different. For a few years, some looked like they were being led to the lions and not in an arena celebrating the best athletes in the world.”

Britain now looks to Dai Green (400 hurdles) and Phillips Idowu (triple jump) to resuscitate their gold medal hopes in South Korea and breathe new life into the team before the Olympics.