Lisa Dobriskey leads GB’s silver charge on last day

Great Britain ended the world championships in Berlin with two silvers yesterday in the women's 1500m and the men's 4x400m relay to end the tournament with six medals, two of each colour, one more than the total set by new UK Athletics head coach Charles van Commenee.

Lisa Dobriskey ran a strong race in the 1500m and was happy enough with her bronze medal, which was subsequently upgraded to silver after Spain's Natalia Rodríguez, who initially finished first, was disqualified for tripping Ethiopian Gelete Burka on the final lap.

The men's 4x400m team of Conrad Williams, Michael Bingham, Rob Tobin and Martyn Rooney bettered the bronze medal of their 4x100m counterparts on Saturday in coming second behind the USA. Rooney had a fierce battle in the anchor leg against the Australians, but held on for silver.

There were further encouraging signs for homegrown talent in that British athletes achieved 20 top eight finishes, suggesting that with the controversial but successful van Commenee in charge some of these could be converted into more medals in London 2012.

WHAT THEY ARE SAYING
Ian Chadband, Daily Telegraph: "Delightfully, the British appeared to have been swept up in Dr Feelgood's spike tracks. There is a strong argument to suggest that, by the championships' conclusion, this could be their best for a decade since Seville, both in terms of performance and potential. You could not have backed this last Saturday morning.  Yet with an eye to 2012, the emergence of a new poster girl in Ennis, and the fulfilment of the rare talent of a seasoned London lad, triple jumper Phillips Idowu, could hardly have been more timely, especially considering that Britain had never previously won more than one gold at these championships since a hat-trick in Stuttgart in 1993."

Rick Broadbent, the Times: "Haunted for the past year by the Olympic final where an ill-judged run saw her finish fourth, Dobriskey gave a telling insight into the Van Commenee’s methodology. 'In the team meeting he gave us a good talking-to and said, after the Olympics, athletics had become a yesterday’s sport with everyone talking about swimming,' she said. 'He said people aren’t interested in hearing that someone’s had a virus and we needed to go and perform. It really hit home and it made a few people sit up.'" ·