Athletics: Caines strikes silver as Britain fail to end on golden high

World Indoor Athletics Championships: Home team sign off with record haul despite disappointment for Edwards

The ninth World Indoor Championships ended with a record haul of medals for the host nation but a distinct sense of anticlimax after the golden performances of Ashia Hansen and Marlon Devonish that had come within 10 minutes of each other on the middle day.

At an event where Britain has never won more than six medals, that total went up to seven with the addition yesterday of silvers from Daniel Caines (400 metres) and Kelly Holmes (1500m), and bronze medals for Jamie Baulch (400m) and the men's 4 x 400m relay team. There was one more British gold, from Danny Crates in the 800m arm-amputees' event, although this did not count in the main medal tally.

After seeing Colin Jackson finish two places away from a medal in his final hurdles race, the crowd were further frustrated by witnessing another 36-year-old who finally appeared to be showing his age, Jonathan Edwards, fall from silver medal position to fourth place in the last round of the triple jump.

It fell to the wiry, silver-haired figure to provide the last action of the Championships, and as he prepared himself, having seen Sweden's Christian Olsson regain the lead from the American Walter Davis, the sense of expectation was almost tangible. But Edwards could not improve upon his fifth-round 17.19m and stood momentarily afterwards with his hands on his knees looking old and weary. Meanwhile, Sweden's jubilant 23-year-old, who beat Edwards to last year's European title, was celebrating a champion's performance after responding to the American's 17.35m with 17.70, the sixth longest ever jumped.

Within a home crowd that had seen Hansen, who lives in nearby Erdington, rise gloriously to the occasion 24 hours earlier, there were expectations of another local gold-medallist in the shape of Caines, the 23-year-old law graduate from Solihull defending his 400m title. Caines produced a personal best of 45.43sec, but had to give best to America's Tyree Washington, who marked his return after two years of injury and personal problems with a winning time of 45.34sec.

Caines had been balked twice by Washington in the opening heats, and those impacts may have made a lasting impression on him. As it was, it was Washington, who had remained in the competition despite a British protest, who reached the front at the crucial point where the runners broke from their lanes with the Briton struggling to stay with him. His face contorted with effort, Caines closed over the final 20m but he had too much to do.

"I did all I could,'' Caines said. "But he's a man who has run 44.2 outdoors, and that's rockin'.'' For an athlete who once announced that he was not an indoor runner, it was an impressive performance from Washington.

Until this season, Holmes was another athlete for whom the outdoors was all, but this year she has taken to the boards to good effect, lowering the national 800m record to 1min 59.21sec earlier this year. Yesterday she finished the 1500m with another British record to her credit, recording 4min 02.66sec behind America's Regina Jacobs, who lowered the world record to 3-59.98 last month. The 39-year-old from Los Angeles always looked in control of the race, finishing in 4:01.67, but Holmes, despite looking tactically unsure on a couple of occasions, finished with a justified look of satisfaction. "It's been a learning experience,'' she said. "It's very different from what I've done before. I've run seven seconds faster than my previous indoor best, so I can't complain.''

Holmes will now return to Johannesburg to train alongside the woman who earned her fifth World Indoor 800m title, Maria Mutola. The Mozambique runner finished in 1min 58.94sec ahead of Austria's Stephanie Graf, who was running after recovering from a recent operation to remove a benign tumour from her thigh. A race which contained all the leading players benefited hugely from the boldness of Britain's Jo Fenn, who took an early lead which she maintained until the final bend before fading to fifth place.

Baulch's bronze in the 400m was shared with Ireland's Paul McKee, who recorded the same time of 45.99, although only after an Irish protest. McKee missed the medals ceremony but had his own award after being moved back from fourth place.

After an absorbing opening day on which Jason Gardener earned a 60m bronze, these Championships were energised by Hansen's giddy leap in the moment of victory, which was followed by a lap of honour where she needed the Union Jack draped around her shoulders to wipe away her tears. After the medal and the flowers, there was a third presentation for her in the form of a bag of ice which she applied to her right heel and Achilles tendon. It took five injections to remove the edge of pain from an injury which is likely to require an operation this week, but Hansen, who responded to an opening effort of 14.88 by Cameroon's Françoise Mbango with a jump of 15.01m, was a satisfied athlete, albeit one still seething from what she described as an attempt to "sabotage'' her.

Her performance was all the more impressive for the way in which she kept her composure after discovering that the piece of tape she was using to mark her run-up had turned up three metres away alongside that of another competitor. "I don't believe it could have been an accident,'' she said.

For Devonish there was not a single negative moment as he proceeded to his first major 200m title in a time of 20.62sec. Like Washington, the 26-year-old Coventry Godiver Harrier was far from keen about running indoors but he was happy enough to have made the decision.

"Everything fell into place for me,'' he said, admitting that he had been helped by the absence of the former champion Frankie Fredericks, and the Americans John Capel, who was injured, and defending Shawn Crawford, who was disqualified in the semi-finals. Devonish maintained that it was the outdoor season which counted – "Do you remember who won this title four years ago? I don't'' – but he will have drawn confidence as he looks ahead to the August World Championships in Paris.