The IAAF World Championships – an athletics event, held every two years by the International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF), is undoubtedly the biggest of its sort; full of enthusiasm and some surreal sportsmanship. This year’s event was even more so. It felt like a magnum opus written by the gods of athletics, with Germany’s Rico Freimuth chasing Kevin Mayer’s score in the decathlon and the USA giving its absolute best and taking the lead in the second heat of the 4×400m, tossing Botswana out. A total of 16 countries participated in the 4×100m relay, out of which 8 qualified for the cliffhanger, the finals.
On the 12th of August, 2017, the Olympic Park in London witnessed a whirlwind of emotions with jaws dropping watching the baton droppers’ nation in the 4×100m men’s Relay Race.
Against the expectations of many, Britain’s Mitchell-Blake slid past Christian Coleman of the USA garnering a dignified gold at the IAAF World Championships, restoring national pride, as this turned out to be Britain’s first ever gold in the relay finals of the World Championships as well as the first won by a host nation. But while all of Britain rejoiced, the rest of the world was perplexed to see Usain Bolt’s anguish. About 30 meters into the final leg, Bolt contracted a hamstring cramp and went down in agonizing pain, failing to complete the final race of his international career.
On the other hand, the winning quartet of Mitchell-Blake, Chijindu Ujah, Adam Gemili and Daniel Talbot set up a new European record by sprinting across 400m in 37.47 seconds. The USA bagged a silver with 37.52 seconds and Japan, a bronze with 38.04 seconds.
The entire stadium in London was erupting with emotions of all sorts. While Bolt’s injury was a bittersweet deja vu of his world championships’ debut race where he hobbled across the finish line because of an injury, the members of the winning quartet could have scarcely imagined this glory after Gemili had failed to secure a place in the individual events and Blake losing the medal in the 200m by a fraction of a second; they could barely contain their excitement and astonishment!
