Gate 27 at Seoul's Incheon airport on Monday morning and there's a somewhat bleary gathering of athletes assembled for the 12-hour flight back to London after the 13th edition of the IAAF World Championships.

Most of those present wear the British colours and the overall mood, one year from the home Olympics, is buoyant. The medal target of seven, set by the chief coach Charles Van Commenee, who sits quietly on the edges of things, has been met – and even if not all of the Britons with gold-medal chances – Dai Greene, Mo Farah, Jessica Ennis and Phillips Idowu – have managed it, two golds and two silvers ain't bad.

As the Brits chatter on their seats, one in every two attending to their mobiles or BlackBerry, there is a tall, very tall, figure blithering about nearby, gleefully papping them, and all other prospective travellers, with a large and very expensive-looking camera.


But on this occasion, the photographer is the giggling centre of attention. No one is bothering him, but most people are aware of him. It's Usain Bolt (pictured).

As the emblematic figure in world athletics, the Jamaican is central to the perception of his sport internationally and his experiences in Daegu pretty much sum up these Championships – a mixture of the unexpected and the excellent.

When Bolt false-started in the 100 metres after some supercharged clowning it was fascinating to speculate on what course he would take when he returned to the arena. He was unabashed, although perhaps a little muted, and his commitment to running his favourite event saw him reaffirm just why he has his paramount status in the sport. There was no showboating and there was a flicker of disappointment that his winning time was not better than 19.40sec – merely the fourth-best ever.

No such ambivalence clouded the victory celebrations after he had brought the baton home for Jamaica in a world record of 37.04, bettering the mark the Jamaican quartet had established at the 2008 Olympics.

Anchoring the team home on that occasion was Asafa Powell, who was also wandering about Incheon Airport, in shades and denims, after a trip that, sadly, never resulted in him being fit enough to compete.

The 100m is a big point of interest at any major championship and, despite the early end to the season forced upon former world champion Tyson Gay because of the need for a hip operation, Powell's early season form – he still comfortably heads the world list with 9.78 – meant his impending meeting with Bolt was one of the marquee events of the World Championships.

Once he had gone, the 100m lost its buzz. It seemed to be a case of watching Bolt defend his title without undue fuss against a field full of talented runners who would be physically and, perhaps in the case of some of his fellow Jamaicans, emotionally incapable of beating him.


From the Championships point of view, Bolt bolting out of his blocks early was actually a very effective – if inadvertent – marketing tool. In the same way, Channel 4's coverage of the event for British TV attracted attention through the unhappy experience of its sacrificial lamb of a presenter from Daegu, Ortis Deley (pictured). At least it wasn't dull.

Deley, gamely, decided to stay on in Korea after he had been moved aside from his role, waiting for his bus to and from the stadium along with the likes of Dean Macey and Katharine Merry. As has been said in other places than these, and by people with broadcasting experience, the responsibility for this debacle lies not with him, but with those who put him in such a horribly exposed position.

If Bolt's 100m blot was the biggest shock of the Championships, there were a healthy number of surprises that registered slightly lower on the Richter Scale, but which, nevertheless, had the effect of freshening up the whole event.

Thus we witnessed the rare sight of pole vaulting's performer par excellence, Yelena Isinbayeva, crashing through the bar en route to a relatively early exit in the final. Having taken a year out to "recharge her batteries", the world record holder's form has been fitful on her limited visits to the circuit this summer. It would have been surprising if she had managed to win after such a ragged preparation, but, then again, she was Isinbayeva, the great champion. Daegu proved her, once again, human and vulnerable.

The same was true in the 10,000m final, in which the prospect of the great Kenenisa Bekele making a serious impact on a race to which his status as defending champion gave him a wild card entry should not have been great, given that injury and, perhaps, a lack of motivation, had prevented him competing for almost 14 months. And yet – this was Bekele, the world record holder, the world and Olympic champion. His low-key exit just before the halfway point proved him, like Isinbayeva, vulnerable.


Soon afterwards, in one of the most elemental finishes to a 10,000m race I have seen in about 25 years, Farah, pictured – having set off for home like a startled deer well before the bell – managed to drop one of his Ethiopian pursuers in the back straight, but could never quite detach the other green-shirted hunter, who savaged the dreams of his desperate quarry in the final, cruel strides of the race.

Farah's golden return a week later in the 5,000m, in which, despite a face equally desperate, he held off the hunters, most notably former world champion Bernard Lagat of the United States, will stand as a memorable chiming memory – two fantastic races and, for the Briton, disappointment transmuting to joy.


When these most recent Championships are recalled in future, there will also be vivid recollection of Sally Pearson's, pictured, ruthless beauty in the 100m hurdles, in the semi-final and final of which she produced two of the most technically perfect hurdling performances to finish as the fourth-fastest ever in her event.

There will be space, too, to recall one of the great javelin competitions of all time, in which the Olympic champion, Barbora Spotakova, saw her early lead overtaken by Russia's Maria Abakumova, then capered with joy after eclipsing her rival with an effort of 71.58 metres, only to see Abakumova trump her ace with the next throw as she reached 71.99m – just 29cm shy of Spotakova's world record.

The Daegu Organising Committee insisted all tickets for these Championships were sold. If so, many of the corporations who block-booked failed to show up en masse and some gaps were clearly plugged with enthusiastic children, who gathered in thrilled groups, chattering and laughing, before being led up to their appointed places by their teachers.

It's no more than will happen in London, as the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has already made clear. But if the circumstances of these bussings-in are unfortunate, the upside is it allows significant numbers of youngsters to experience a sport that needs to keep tapping in to the enthusiasm of the younger generation. The children all appeared to have their own sushi lunchboxes, too.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, has covered the last five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. Previously he has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. He is now chief feature writer for insidethegames. Rowbottom's Twitter feed can be accessed here.