With their skipper at the thick of the action the hosts came through to achieve their World Championship target thanks to a supreme team effort over the final weekend of action as a full set of medals was collected in the relays.

After the heroics of the British 4x100 metres quartets the previous evening it was over to their 4x400 metre counterparts last night and an extra injection of power was added to both with team captain Eilidh Doyle brought into the women’s line-up, while men’s number one Matthew Hudson-Hill, whose mindset had been questioned by team-mate Martyn Rooney after the semi-finals, came in to run the opening leg of their race. The women were on first Doyle’s fellow Scot Zoey Clark, the British champion, leading them off with a gutsy run to hand over to Laviai Nielsen who handed over to the captain with the team leading the pack that had been left behind by a magnificent USA team and while the 30-year-old was tying up as she handed over the baton she had done enough to ensure that Emily Diamond could secure a silver medal.

“We knew it was going to be tough to get a medal so to come away with a silver was better than we expected,” Doyle said afterwards

On the basis of both their semi-final performance and the suggestion of some disharmony in the ranks the men’s 4x400 squad had looked the least likely to claim a medal.

However it was evident that Hudson-Hill had well and truly responded to the implied criticism from Rooney as he made a significant difference on his return to the ranks. Dwayne Cowan turned his efforts into a visible advantage on the second leg and and by the time Rabah Yousif had co,mpleted his leg three teams were clear with Britain trailing the USA and Trinidad & Tobago, for whom Lalonde Gordon overhauled Fred Kerley to claim gold.

On the home straight Rooney who paid tribute to his colleagues in saying “they made it impossible for me not to win a medal,” briefly even looked as if he might manage to upgrade it to something better, but a sixth medal for the team took them to their target and Doyle led her women’s team back onto the track to celebrate with them.

The reason for Doyle’s popularity was reinforced amidst those celebrations.

As the two squads gathered together the 30-year-old who has previously described herself as the ‘mother hen’ of the Scottish athletes seemed to realise that Rooney, an often controversial figure because of the outspoken nature of many of his comments, had been cut adrift and she immediately raced over to gather him towards the rest.

It had been a challenging championships for the home team in many ways but in the end their efforts had managed to live up to the world class nature of the event as a whole.

In the course of 10 days of action as well as those medals there had been a number of near misses offering considerable encouragement for the longer term, not least in Scotland given the vast experience acquired by that record sized contingent.

The championships meanwhile ended with a tribute to, then lap of honour completed by a slightly downbeat looking Usain Bolt, who for once almost seemed embarrassed at the extravagant nature of the attention being accorded to him at the end of a Championships at which he had failed to perform as we have become used to.

However it was worth noting that in anchoring the USA to last night’s relay gold Allyson Felix matched the Jamaican’s record haul of 11 World Championship gold medals, while she has a total of 16 to his 14. She has achieved what she has attracting far less in the way of attention down the years and she readily shared the credit on this occasion with her team-mates.

“It does mean so much to me every time. I’m grateful to run with these amazing girls,” said the 31-year-old.

“They work so hard and deserve all their success. It’s an honour to run in the relay for Team USA and i will always treasure these moments.”