GB fail to win gold amid worst return for 22 years

Great Britain and Northern Ireland failed to win a gold medal at a World Athletics Championships for the first time in 22 years as the team missed their medal table target in Tokyo.

GB ended the nine-day competition with a total of five medals, which represented their joint-lowest overall return since Helsinki in 2005, when they won three.

The team's fortunes were summed up in the event which provided their final medal opportunity in Japan, as the women's 4x100m relay quartet - winners of Olympic silver last year - finished two-tenths of a second off the podium.

That confirmed Great Britain would fail to win a relay medal, of any colour, for the first time since Paris in 2003.

That was also the last occasion they finished without a gold.

Set a target of achieving a top-eight finish in the medal table, the 64-strong British squad finished 21st.

It comes after the team equalled their best haul of 10 medals to finish seventh at the previous World Championships two years ago.

On that occasion, they brought home two gold medals, three silvers and five bronze from Budapest.

They also achieved GB's best return at an Olympics for 40 years with 10 athletics medals at Paris 2024.

In Tokyo, Jake Wightman ended their medal wait on day five with men's 1500m silver, before Amy Hunt claimed her first global individual medal with silver in the women's 200m.

Katarina Johnson-Thompson shared bronze in a dramatic heptathlon finale on Saturday.

Georgia Hunter Bell led Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson to a British medal double in the women's 800m final, however their bid for a stunning one-two was spoiled by Kenya's Lilian Odira in Tokyo.

There was some misfortune among the disappointment, with defending 1500m champion Josh Kerr and pole vaulter Molly Caudery both suffering injuries.

Elsewhere, marathon runner Emile Cairess could not complete the men's marathon, which took place amid high temperatures and stifling humidity, while Olympic and world 400m silver medallist Matthew Hudson-Smith suffered an early exit.

Despite relay medals supplying five of GB's 10 athletics medals at last summer's Games, there was no success here - with the men's 4x100m quartet failing to get the baton round in their heat.