Members of the British 4x100m relay team who threw away the chance of a medal with a botched final changeover dramatically turned on British Athletics and each other amid bitter recriminations after the race.
They blamed their coaches for changing the team at the last minute and in the process threatening their livelihoods, accusing them of upsetting a winning quartet by bringing in CJ Ujah in place of Harry Aikines-Aryeetey between the heats and the final.
It was Ujah, running the last leg, who failed to receive the baton from James Ellington. Afterwards, a clearly furious Richard Kilty turned on the management and said that if the team had not been changed they would have won a medal. “It’s just heartbreaking knowing it would have been so easy to get bronze. We ran a lot better in the heat the first three legs. It’s teamwork, individuals don’t make teams,” he said of a race that ended with Jamaica taking gold and the USA also disqualified.
“Last year we were perfect, we were solid. We won everything. That’s what you get for bringing in people who haven’t run. It’s teamwork. It’s not about speed, it’s about coming together as a team.”
Relays coach Stephen Maguire, who replaced Rana Reider last year, was responsible for the decision to parachute in the quicker Ujah to run the final leg but it was a gamble that backfired.
“We have to go back and sit down as it’s unstable. We don’t have a proper, solid coach taking order,” said Ellington. “Every relay race this year the team has switched from heats to world relays final. I think if we’d had Dina Asher-Smith on the last leg we would have took the baton and we’d have got the bronze.”
As his team-mates blamed the decision to select him, a shell-shocked Ujah looked on.
“Everyone’s got their own opinion. I can only do what I was told to do and I was told to come into the team,” he said. “I would have loved to race in the heats but I didn’t get picked for one reason or another.”
The sight of the British relay team failing to get the baton around safely at major championships was not an unusual one, but the extent to which they blamed Ujah afterwards was.
“If Harry had been there we would have got the job done. It’s probably not the order that we wanted as a team,” said Kilty. “The team together had decided on a team that we thought was best but it completely switched three hours before a world championship final.”
Ellington said that the pressure was different for team members who receive lottery funding purely because of their medal potential in the relay.
“Words can’t explain it. Some of us bust our arses all year for this relay. Someone like me, I haven’t got any major sponsors so I live off lottery funding,” he said. “When we do things like this our lottery funding gets cut so I might be back to nine-to-five going to the Olympics next year.”
Bolt said he had been more focused than usual, eschewing his usual showboating, at a championships that he ranks among his best due to “the fact of what I have been through this season, the doubts people have had.”
“I came out here and proved to everybody that you can never call Usain Bolt out,” said the Jamaican phenomenon, who planned to celebrate with a bar of chocolate. “I am the champion and I show up when it matters.”
