GOLDEN BOYS MAKE A BOLT FOR SOLO GLORY
Relay team target Usain’s Olympic titles after shocking the world in London
BRITAIN’S golden boys took aim at Usain Bolt’s Olympic titles after stealing the show on his farewell
appearance.
CJ Ujah, Adam Gemili, Danny Talbot and Nethaneel MitchellBlake had just become the nation’s first sprint relay world champions.
But already their sights had moved on to Tokyo 2020 and the heights they could reach off the springboard of Saturday’s triumph.
“One hundred per cent we believe we can now achieve things individually,” said Talbot. “I really think we can take it to another level.
“Now we’ve got this gold medal together, we can push each other again. None of us are in our prime. We can keep pushing forward.”
Bolt’s retirement, after he pulled up injured in his final race, means there will be new Olympic champions in both the 100m and 200m.
In London, Bolt’s 100m title went to Justin Gatlin, at 35 the oldest-ever 100m winner, capturing the title in the slowest time (9.92secs) since 2003.
His 200m crown went to an athlete few had even heard of. And Ramil Guliyev’s winning time of 20.11 was slower than Mitchell-Blake ran in the heats.
What this richly talented crop of British sprinters needed was something tangible to build their belief upon, rather than the diet of disqualifications and dropped batons upon which they had been reared. Something like a world title. As he stood on the start line, Gemili thought back to London 2012 and the “brutal, horrible” memory of setting off too early and getting the host nation disqualified. Talbot had a part of that too, as well as the Beijing world final in 2015, in which he and Ujah screwed up the changeover, resulting in the same sorry outcome.
“I’m a massive believer that everything happens for a reason,” Talbot would later say, after Britain triumphed in a European record 37.47secs.
“To become world champions in our home country… believe me, all the bad times have been worth it.” Gatlin had seen it all before. At the 2004 Athens Olympics, he was the individual champion and leader of a seemingly unbeatable US team.
Thirteen years on, the Americans were hot favourites again.
Yet history repeated itself. Fittingly it was Mitchell-Blake, born just round the corner from the stadium, who played the anchor role Mark Lewisbeen Francis had made famous in Greece.
“It’s been a hell of a journey,” said Gemili, his trademark smile restored after a difficult season. “But it has made us tough, strong and resilient.
“Five years after what was a brutal, horrible time at London 2012, to do what we have on the same track, feels like redemption. It’s amazing.”
The women’s sprint quartet of Asha Philip, Desiree Henry, Dina AsherSmith and Daryll Neita capped a memorable evening for the host nation by claiming silver.
“This is the greatest night for British sprinting,” declared Philip. “What message does it send out?
“That we don’t drop the baton any more!”