Given this was once a country of incorrigible baton-droppers, the British men’s relay team restored national pride in the most emphatic and improbable style last night with a gold medal to gatecrash Usain Bolt’s showpiece send-off. The juxtaposition of Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake jumping for joy as a tormented Bolt cursed a strained hamstring is one that will remain seared upon the minds of all who saw it.

Seldom has an evening of sport culminated in such an emotional maelstrom. Bolt must have played the script over in his head a dozen times: one more Saturday night gold, for old times’ sake, for the ultimate showman. Except the quartet of Mitchell-Blake, Chijindu Ujah, Adam Gemili and Daniel Talbot would have none of it. Running down the Americans in the closing strides, they produced Britain’s first 4 x 100 metres gold at world championships and the first ever by a host nation.

Bolt, prone and distraught on the track, was left to endure an exit as undignified as it was controversial. The finest champions are not defined by their last moments in the field of battle, but as heartbreakers go this was Donald Bradman’s duck at the Oval to the power of 100. It looked at first like the infernally-timed breakdown of his ageing legs, but each of Bolt’s team-mates argued that he had suffered a cramp brought on by unnecessary delays.