Great Britain and Northern Ireland failed to win a gold medal at a World Athletics Championships for the first time in 22 years.
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.
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.
Reflecting on the championships, Great Britain head coach Paula Dunn told BBC Sport: “Definitely a mixed bag. Five medals which is good and I’m pleased to see, and some missed opportunities.
“So it’s time for us to go back sit down with the coaches and athletes, reflect and do a review and see how we move forward.”
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 lead 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.
Reflecting on GB’s performance, retired four-time global heptathlon champion Jessica Ennis-Hill said on BBC TV: “It has to be [a springboard to do better]. We talk about the year after an Olympics being a funny year, whether that’s through injuries or changes. There’s a lot going on but, we can’t deny the fact we’re disappointed.
“We expected a few more opportunities and we’ve come away with five medals which we’ve got to celebrate because they were fantastic performances.
“But we can’t get away from the fact we’ve not taken a gold from these championships and that’s tough.”
On the failure of the relay teams to win a medal for the first time since 2003, Ennis-Hill added: “That’s not a nice statistic. We understand championships are tough. You come in with injuries and lots of things happen along the way and the pressure, but we have always won medals in the relay.
“I don’t know if it’s down to structuring of the team, the members, the staff, the funding – there’s so many different parts and I’m sure GB will go away and look at this.”
Jenny Meadows, coach of 800m medallists Hunter Bell and Hodgkinson, said: “We’ve talked about individuals and what happens the year after the Olympic Games.
“Sometimes you can get lulled into that false sense of security thinking ‘we’re there and consistent and we can keep doing it’.”
