Athletics: Relay teams dish up golden finale for outstanding Britain

Britain's European Championships ended with flashing smiles in the rainswept gloom of the Olympic Stadium here yesterday as the men's 4x100 metres and 4x400m relay teams brought their country's total of gold medals to seven, a total only equalled by the country that finished one place ahead of them at the top of the table, Russia.

While Britain's sprint relay win had been widely predicted – it was theirs to lose, although British teams have proved adept at that in recent years – the 400 metres victory was an unexpected bonus for a team that has coped capably with back-to-back championships following the Commonwealth Games. The latter victory owed much to an astonishing second leg by the 400m hurdler Matt Elias, who took over the baton from Jared Deacon in third place and handed on a two-metres lead to his fellow Welshman Jamie Baulch.

The 23-year-old Cardiff athlete had produced an outstanding split time of 44.1sec while racing for Wales in the Commonwealth Games as he missed catching England's Daniel Caines on the line by a few thousandths of a second. It was his second silver medal of the Games following his defeat by Chris Rawlinson in his individual event.

Although Elias's hairstyle was altered – the straggly pink mohican of Manchester replaced by a blue-rinse crop – the commitment remained. This time he earned a golden reward as Baulch, showing the discipline that was missing from his running as a youngster, maintained the lead for Caines, who resisted the best efforts of Poland's Robert Mackowiak and Russia's Yuriy Borzakovsky over the final 100m to finish in 3min 01.25sec. Russia took silver in 3:01.34, with France moving up for bronze in 3:02.76 after the Poles were disqualified for the pushing and shoving which saw the home runner Jens Dautzenberg hit the deck at the second changeover.

As in Manchester, Elias and Baulch, who was sporting a silver rinse yesterday, provided acrobatic post-race celebrations in the form of an impromptu demonstration of handsprings and somersaults. That's entertainment.

"I'm fed up with silver,' Elias said. 'After the Commonwealths I needed a gold. It's capped off a perfect season for me."

While Christian Malcolm, Darren Campbell, Marlon Devonish and anchor runner Dwain Chambers ambled happily through their flag-waving lap of honour, the cloud cover was so low that it obscured half of the telecommunications tower which stands alongside the stadium. But with the trackside clock displaying a time of 38.19sec, the fastest in the world this year, the message was coming through loud and clear – British sprinting is in healthy shape.

How happy is another question. While the first choice quartet performed admirably, there was little margin of error for them following the abrupt departure the previous day of team-mates Jason Gardener and Allyn Condon.

Both men left the athletes' village after the decision was taken by the sprint coaches Graeme Knight and Steve Perks to pick a full strength team for both heats and final.

According to UK Athletics, Condon – who has made a near miraculous recovery from an operation to correct a faulty heart valve in August last year – went home against orders because he thought he deserved a run in the heats. Gardener was said to have a hamstring injury that he did not want to risk exacerbating.

The latter runner, however, denied he was carrying any injury. "I am a bit sore," Gardener conceded, "but no more so than any of the others who have run the individual 100m." The 26-year-old Bath runner now intends to register his dissatisfaction with the way Britain's relay team is currently being managed.

"I'm writing to UK Athletics to deal not just with the situation here but also over a number of years," said Gardener, who planned to refer to the errors which saw the team go out early in last year's World Championships and the previous year's Olympics.

"I will await their response," he added. "If I am not happy I might then just explain how I have been treated in the relays over the years."

Max Jones, UK Performance Director, commented: "Jason has an ongoing issue over several years with the relay team. He finds it difficult to fit in, but I would like him to be here with the squad.'

Chambers had sympathy for the pair after adding the relay gold to his individual version. "Allyn's had a difficult year. He would have loved to have been part of it but he wasn't given the opportunity and that's hard," he said. "But with a team as good as we have, people are always going to be disappointed."

The squad had warmed up with reserve Chris Lambert, and high hurdler Tony Jarrett.

Campbell dedicated his medal to his grandfather, Sheif, who died in Jamaica on Friday after visiting Manchester three weeks ago for an operation.

"The lads have done a great job keeping me going with that and my disqualification in the 200 metres," Campbell said. "The next two years are about getting to the top of the tree at the Athens Olympics. The one good thing about getting disqualified is I got to watch [Konstantinos] Kenteris win the 200 final. I know now I have to run 19 seconds if I want to beat him. That's my plan for the next two years."

Chris Tomlinson, hoping to recover something tangible from a season that began with him improving Lynn Davies' 34-year-old British long jump record to 8.27 metres, remained a frustrated figure after a competition where he could do no better than sixth place – the same as he managed at the Commonwealth Games.

An opening effort of 7.78 saw the ungainly 6ft 6in Middlesbrough athlete occupy silver medal position after the first round, but he was unable to improve. Gold went to Alexei Lukashevich of Ukraine, in 8.08m. Tomlinson has done better than that on several occasions. All very frustrating for an athlete who currently heads the European and Commonwealth ranking for this year.