IAAF World Champs 2015: GB Mens 4x100m fail again

 The World Athletics Championships in Beijing have been a fantastic spectacle of sport. Bolt beating Gatlin, GB gold and British records falling, its been brilliant.

Yesterday afternoon, however, the Men's 4x100m once again failed on the global stage. Since winning a bronze in 2009, Britain have found a way to embarrass themselves time and again on the global stage.

Yesterdays debacle went to a whole new level and it saw members of the team blaming each other and blaming the coaches for changing the team. I understand their frustration, a medal was there for the taking had it not been for the botched hand over. That does not, however, excuse this type of reaction. As second leg runner Danny Talbot said "We win as a team, we lose as a team".

The problems started when the coaches decided to bring in CJ Ujah to replace Harry Aikines-Aryeetey for the final. First leg runner Richard Kilty said that the team for the final was "not a team we have practiced as much". I didn't think this change was a bad one. Ujah has twice run 9.96  in his career and is the current British champion over 100m. It makes sense to bring your fastest guy to anchor the team home. If I had to be uber critical it would have perhaps been better to drop Talbot and not Harry AA and keep the front three as was. May not have made a difference but who knows? 

In the final, third leg runner James Ellington was coming in to Ujah, who left at the right moment. Suddenly, Ellington seemed to slow and therefore unable to get to Ujah, prompting CJ to run out the box and see GB's chances of a medal evaporate.

This then led to the farcical scenes afterwards with Kilty and Ellington critical of first Ujah and then the coaches. Kilty, who has a habit of opening his mouth, is quoted as saying that had Aikines-Aryeetey or even Dina Asher-Smith been in the team then GB would have won a medal. Ellington said that "perhaps CJ went early". The two of them then painted a picture of disharmony in the relay squad after a major coaching change. Credit to Ujah for not biting back at his team mates.

The frustrations are obvious but Kilty and Ellington should not have opened their mouths like this. It shows a lack of respect and lack of thinking on their part. This is something that could have been handled behind closed doors with the coaches. They have also been made to look rather stupid because BBC analysis showed that Ellington and not Ujah was at fault.

The coaching team are not entirely blameless in all of this. If they were going to run Ujah in the final, then why on earth would you not run him in the heats? So everyone can get a medal? I understand taking a risk but with our record it was perhaps a foolish idea to do so.

There needs to be an overhaul of this attitude in the relay squad and perhaps the personnel too. We are not going to win medals with in-fighting. Therefore over the winter, pick the team, train them and run them in the European Championships in preparation for Rio.

In regards to personnel, in my, very under qualified opinion, Kilty and Ellington are lucky to be in the squad in the first place. Ellington has been in the team for some time now and was also involved in the mishap that led to the 2013 disqualification in Moscow, albeit it wasn't his fault. Kilty is a great starter and world class 60m runner but is he really the best option to lead us off?

My team would feature this line up: Zharnel Huges, Ujah, Adam Gemili, James Dasaolu. I'd have Talbot and Harry AA as reserves as they have proven to be useful runners in the past. I get the need for team work and consistency but we also need the speed in between. If it is possible to get all these guys together to train and throw in the other two, then surely we can find a suitable quartet of four to hopefully win a medal in Rio. Jamaica for years have relied on speed with safe changeovers. That's why they have won every major event since 2008 and broken the world record three times.

This is just my opinion. I don't know what happens behind the scenes but I'd rather any complaints kept there rather than being played out very publicly.  It just makes the whole thing a whole lot worse.