Team GB bag brace of 4x400m Bronzes on World Athletics day nine

Great Britain and Northern Ireland’s male 4x400m quartet took advantage of naive running from Jamaica’s Javon Francis, with Martyn Rooney dipping on the line to bag Bronze on the final day of the 2015 World Athletics Championships from Beijing.

That men’s relay brought the curtain down on proceedings in the Bird’s Nest with the USA finally getting one over their sprint rivals by taking Gold in 2:57.82. Trinidad and Tobago scooped Silver.

Jamaica’s women put together a more dominant display in their team event, taking top honours way ahead of the United States in 3:19.13. Team GB came third again, ending the championships fourth in the medal table with four golds (Mo Farah twice, Greg Rutherford and Jessica Ennis-Hill), a silver and two bronzes.

African dominance of women’s distance running continued as Marathon favourite Mare Dibaba took Gold ahead of Kenya’s Helah Kiprop, and Ethiopia took a clean sweep of the 5k medals.

Ganzebe Dibaba’s bid to do a 1500m and 5000m double floundered, however, and she had to settle for Bronze over the longer distance behind compatriots Almaz Ayana and Senbere Teferi.

There was also a shock result in the women’s javelin with defending champion Barbora Spotakova unable to replicate her qualifying throw, let alone her best form.

Rival Sunette Viljoen of South Africa looked like finally getting one over the Czech Republic missile launcher, but was better by an area record of 66m 23cm by China’s Huihui Lyu and a winning world lead distance of 67m 69cm by German Kathrina Molitor, who was last to throw.