What went wrong for GB's relay squads in Tokyo?

A lot can change in a year.

Great Britain brought back five relay medals and a renewed sense of optimism from the Paris Olympics. Just over 12 months later, it's a different tale in Tokyo.

A DNF [did not finish] in the men's 4x100, last in the women's 4x400m heat and a fifth-place finish in the 4x400m mixed relay suggests not much has gone to plan in Japan.

So, what has gone wrong?

In the men's 4x100m, Eugene Amo-Dadzie blundered and set off too early for the handover, leaving Jona Efoloko stranded with the baton.

"You can see Jona Efoloko is shouting 'hand' and essentially he is asking for Eugene Amo-Dadzie to put his hand out but you can see he's gone too soon," said former sprinter Jeanette Kwakye.

"What's frustrating about that is sometimes people say it's the responsibility of the incoming runner but there are measured steps and they practise so much.

"Really and truly there isn't an excuse," she added.

London 2012 gold medallist Greg Rutherford called it "heartbreaking" for a team that bagged bronze in Paris just a year ago.

"The changeovers were beautiful from one to two and two to three. He's just gone too soon.

"We have got to September, late in the season, and it is like everyone has forgotten how to pass the baton," he added.

There was similar frustration in the women's 4x400m - a team accustomed to success off the back of winning silver or bronze at nine of the past 10 world championships.

The quartet of Poppy Malik, Yemi Mary John, Nicole Yeargin and Victoria Ohuruogu finished last in their heat, which was deemed "not good enough" by Rutherford.

"Yes, it's tough and conditions are hard but when there's that much focus on an event, you can't come last in your heat at a world championships.

"The four girls that went out there, they should be able to navigate a qualification. From my point of view, it's genuinely not good enough."

"We would expect them to qualify," Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill added. "We've seen the success of the team in previous years. Where did it go wrong for that Great British team?"

It wasn't total doom and gloom - the men's 4x400m squad achieved a season's best to reach Sunday's final. The women's 4x100m quartet also booked their place in the final with world 200m silver medallist Amy Hunt still to add into the mix.

Darren Campbell, who won gold as part of Great Britain's 4x100m relay team at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, is now the head of sprints, relays and hurdles for UK Athletics.

Ahead of Tokyo, he told BBC World Service's More Than The Score podcast that "attitude, discipline and relay skills" are the key ingredients for relay success.

"I would say percentage wise, we are up there for constantly challenging," Campbell said. "We are very good at what we do but in relays things go wrong.

"If you just have raw speed with no hand skills, we are not going to get the baton around. You need a high level of speed, beautiful slick hand changes, discipline and good acceleration.

"The incoming runner shouts 'hand', the hand goes back quickly and the baton is in the hand pretty much straight away. That is all you can ask of the athletes."

British Athletics were awarded £20.45m in funding from UK Sport for the four-year cycle to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics - a reduction of £1.725m from Paris.

Jack Buckner, CEO of UK Athletics, said the organisation was "disappointed" with the decision, adding their recent medal hauls "deserved a higher level of investment".

It is not known how much each athlete receives in funding or how much money is allocated to each event but Rutherford said he expected better given the resources available to the relay sides.

"We put so much into the relay in this country," he said. "We employ multiple people to make sure that we can get this right and it has gone really, really poorly today."

Sally Munday, chief executive officer of UK Sport, said funding should not be looked at as either a "reward" or a "punishment" for performances at the Paris Games.

"The decision that we've made against all the sports is we've looked at their potential," she said.

Finance also comes from athlete performance awards (APAs), which are paid directly to individual athletes and contribute to their living and sporting costs so they can focus on competing.

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