The excuses came thick and fast after Britain’s worst Athletics World Championship performance for 22 years. It was the humidity. The bus ride from the warm-up area to the stadium was too long. It is the year after an Olympics. The rest of the world has caught up.

Britain ended the World Championships in Tokyo with a total of five medals – and none of them gold. It was the first time GB had returned home without a gold medal since 2003, in the nascent years of lottery funding.

And it is this vast funding – £20.4m for the current Olympic cycle, only below the amount given to cycling and aquatics – that will have critics wondering whether it is providing value for money.

Britain had to wait until day five before securing their first medal of the championships – Jake Wightman in the 1500

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