By Andy Schooler, Sportinglife.com, Edmonton

The 8th IAAF World Championships are officially the worst ever for Britain in terms of medals won, and now people are going to want to know why.

Triple jump great Jonathan Edwards delivered the expected gold, while Dean Macey despite a variety of injury problems during the decathlon, won bronze.

But that was where the success ended.

It seems to me that all of Britain's “maybe” medal men and women fell short, lacking that extra something needed to succeed on a stage as high as this one.

There was Dwain Chambers in the 100m, forced out of the medals by American dominance in a race where there were simply better competitors.

Then there was Christian Malcolm in the 200m, sensational in qualifying but pipped by 0.02 of a second to the bronze when it mattered most.

Arguably this can be put down to nerves. Malcolm's expectations, like those of the British fans, were sky high. Arguably his fifth place can be attributed to nerves, but at the tender age of 22, he will come back stronger from his experience here.

Running the 100m as well as his specialist event was probably a mistake with hindsight and one he is unlikely to repeat in the future.

Steve Backley was perhaps the most disappointing, failing to make the final of the javelin less than three weeks after what he described as his “best ever throw”.

So much for those simply beaten by better people on the day.

But there were also those who could have done much more to aid their own medal hopes.

In the women's events, 10000m heroine Paul Radcliffe simply got her tactics wrong, leaving it too late to shake off a trio of Ethiopians.

But there was always a horrible feeling around the Commonwealth Stadium that even had she run the race differently she would still have been forced into fourth for the second year running.

Then there was the men's 4x100m relay team. With the second best individuals in the event, a staggering piece of team selection appeared to cost them another medal.

Mark Lewis-Francis officially had a tight hamstring which prevented him from running in the first-round heat. Instead Jonathan Barbour ran the anchor leg.

Surely Britain would have such an advantage by then that it wouldn't matter. My, how they have yet to learn the lessons of the past.

Barbour and Malcolm fluffed the final changeover and for the second year running – and those two occasions are by no means isolated in the past decade – Britain failed to get the baton round.

How bad Lewis-Francis' injury was may never be known, but even his British team-mate Tim Benjamin criticised the decision for him to be left out, suggesting he would have run had the race been a final.

To all those who watched on with horror, the question was why not persist with your best team in every round? They have the most practice and subsequently are less likely to make such glaring mistakes. It is not a difficult notion to understand.

Other figures of which things were expected by some included Mark Richardson, Chris Rawlinson, Larry Achike and Ashia Hansen, but for them to take a medal would have been a big upset.

As sorry an excuse as it may sound, I believe the main reason for the lack of success here has to be attributed to injuries, rather than the view that Britons lack that extra determination to succeed.

The Australians are always given as an example of people of want to win at all costs.

Anyone who saw the effort put in by the likes of Radcliffe and Malcolm here could not say they hadn't given 100 per cent.

Katharine Merry was generally regarded as a hot favourite for the women's 400m until she pulled out just days before the championships began.

And then Denise Lewis would have been expected to get some kind of medal had she started the heptathlon.

Olympic silver medallist in the 200m Darren Campbell was also left watching the events unfold on TV in Britain, while Iwan Thomas – who three years ago was set to become one of Britain's all-time great 400m runners - attended the championships, but after two years out through injury was only just setting out on the comeback trail.

Merry, Lewis and Campbell are three medallists from Sydney where there was a total of six.

Edwards, Chambers and Holmes – another blighted by fitness problems - were the other three.

UK Athletics has already announced that a sports medicine expert is to be brought in to see if there is anything that can be done to keep athletes fit for major championships such as these – a move they should be praised for.

But the natural thing to say seems to me to be you'll never stop injuries. Just like in football where injuries can cost a team a championship, here they cost a higher medal tally.

It is just one of those unfortunate things. Those who panic and look elsewhere for answers are kidding themselves.

Next year with the long list of athletes I have named in this article, Great Britain and its four individual countries will scoop medals galore in the European Championships and Commonwealth Games against weaker opposition.

Of course, the real test comes in Paris in two years time at the next World Championships.

But by then the likes of Chambers, Malcolm, Macey and Merry will be at or be approaching the peaks of their career.

Edwards may well still be dominating the triple jump and of course Lewis-Francis is a star even Maurice Greene says is waiting in the wings.

Already there is a good accumulator bet – six medals once more at Paris 2003.

Mark my words, it could well happen.

What did you think of the World Championships?

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