Graveyard of the favourites

Thursday, August 21: Day 13 of the Games saw the Bird's Nest stadium become something of a graveyard for favourites, and Great Britain and the US suffered more than most.

Leading the roll-call of missed chances was British triple-jumper Phillips Idowu, the red-hot favourite for the event, who finished second behind Portugal's Nelson Evora. Idowu led the event in the early stages, but once Evora took the lead with a jump of 17.67m he was not able to respond, and finished second with a jump of 17.62m. But at least he got a medal.

There were a series of spectacular blow-ups in the 4x100m relay heats which saw several medal contenders fall by the wayside. Team GB, the defending champions, were disqualified and both the American men and women's teams dropped the baton in wet conditions.

Craig Pickering was due to run the final 100m of Team GB's heat, but he set off far too soon for the handover with Marlon Devonish, and by the time the baton changed hands Pickering was outside the permitted area and the team was disqualified.

Earlier, a calamitous handover between Darvis Patton and Tyson Gay sent the US baton crashing to the floor along with the team's hopes of a medal. Amazingly, the US women's team then replicated the error in their heat when the handover from Torri Edwards to Lauren Williams went wrong and once again the baton fell to earth.

Another favourite faltered in the men’s 400m final. Defending champion Jeremy Wariner from the US, who was expected to win with ease, started well but faded horribly in the closing stages. His compatriot LaShawn Merritt claimed gold in a time of 43.75 seconds. Wariner held on for second and a third American, David Neville, claimed bronze - literally diving across the finishing line, prompting medics armed with a stretcher to rush on to the track to assist him.

Outside the arena there was success for Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson, who won Britain's fourth sailing gold in the Star class event in Qingdao. David Davies claimed silver for GB in the men's 10km swim.

FIRST POSTED AUGUST 21, 2008