On the Scene in Daegu -- World Champs End; One WR Set

The 13th IAAF World Championships got its first world record in its last event, ending the nine-day meet Sunday on a thrilling note.

Usain Bolt anchored the Jamaican 4 x 100m relay team to a time of 37.04 seconds, slicing .06 off the world record set by the Jamaicans in Beijing in 2008. And that's how exactly how close sponsor TDK came to avoid having to write a $100,000 check.

"I kept on looking at the clock and kept on saying, 'I can do this, I can do this,'" said Bolt, who finished with gold medals in the relay and the 200m after his false start knocked him out of the 100m.

The U.S. team, which was challenging Jamaica until the final turn, got tangled up with Great Britain on the final exchange and neither team finished.

The U.S. still won the most medals, 25, which included 12 gold, eight silver and five bronze. Russia was second with 19 medals (nine gold, four silver, six bronze), followed by Kenya, with 17 medals (seven gold, six silver, four bronze) and Jamaica with nine medals (four gold, four silver and one bronze).

Among the 200 competing countries, 41 countries won at least one medal, demonstrating the universality of track and field.

Unfortunately for the hosts, they weren't one of them. South Korea did not win any medals, with its best finishes a sixth place and a seventh. The crowd didn't seem to mind, cheering wildly when the men's 4 x 100m relay set a national record of 38.94 seconds in the heats.

Sweden won no medals when hosting the 1995 Worlds in Gothenburg and Canada was shut out during the 2001 Edmonton Worlds.

On the final day, South Korea's best chance for a medal was the unofficial men's marathon team event, but the final result was sixth place.

"I am just bitter about our records today," national team coachMan Hwa Jeong told reporters. "We have to revamp everything before the Olympics."

Young Jo Hwang, a former Olympic marathon champion and technical director for marathons at the Korean Association of Athletics Federations, was just as harsh in his assessment.

"Everyone has worked for a long time for the championships on our home soil, but we had a shameful end," Hwang said. "I am sorry that we couldn't meet peoples' high expectations for the marathon. But there are more events for them to run. I expect these young runners to learn from this experience and work even harder."

Diack Pleased

IAAF president Lamine Diack said he was happy wth happy with the "extraordinary competition in Daegu." While he noted that major athletes didn't always get the expected results (Bolt in the 100m, pole vaulter Steve Hooker of Australia, Allyson Felix of the U.S. in the 200m and Blanka Vlasic of Croatia are just a few), there were also unexpected medals from countries such as Grenada, Tunisia and Zimbabwe, which Diack said was very satisfying.

"The atmosphere has been beautiful," Diack said. "We have been greatly welcomed in a country where athletics s not a tradition. Every day young people are coming to discover our sport, track and field."

Atendance was strong. Not counting Sunday, for which attendance figures were not available, the highest capacity night was Saturday, with 33,772 people, or 99.24 percent.

Organizers said they sold 464,381 tickets, well over the target number of 454,000, and they projected 94.30 percent of capacity.

"Generally speaking," Diack said, "one could not dream of better conditions for the development of our sport."

New Senior VP

In a unanimous decision of the IAAF Council, Robert Hersh of the United States was named the new senior vice president of the IAAF, replacing Sergey Bubka. Hersh got the highest number of votes in the balloting for four vice president slots last week.

After a glitch in the electronic voting system made the IAAF go to paper ballots, Hersh received 175 votes, Dahlan Al-Hamad of Qatar had 171, Sebastian Coe of Great Britain received 169 and Bubka, of Ukraine, had 159.

False-Start Rule Remains

Diack said that no one brought up the controversial false-start rule during the IAAF Council meeting.

"You should not have illusions," he told journalists during a final-day press conference. "We will not get back on this question of false starts. I am one of those that defended the idea that the rule should be kept."

He added that the IAAF did not adopt the rule to help television (because the meet would stay on schedule), "but for the credibility of our games."

Just because Bolt is the best athlete, he said, doesn't mean that the rules should not apply. "He said, 'It's my mistake, and this wiil not make us change our position. We will not change the rule, the false start is a disqualification."

2017 Field Narrows

Diack confirmed that Barcelona, which was expected to bid for the 2017 World Championships, is not in the running.

"It is true that Barcelona is no longer a candidate," he said. "We only have two candidates for 2017, London and Doha."

Doha is expected to seek non-traditional dates, probably September. "We never said that World Championships had to take place in August every time," Diack said. Having them the second half of September, he said, "is something I have nothing against."

Blood Doping

The IAAF announced that it it has succeeded in its ambitious project to collect a blood sample from each of the 1,848 accredited athletes participating at the IAAF World Championships.

A blood testing team from the IAAF worked around the clock since Aug. 18 to collect samples from athletes at the Sarbi Centre in the Athletes' Village.

The program of blood collection and analysis in Daegu forms the basis of the IAAF's development of an Athlete Biological Passport (ABP).

Television Numbers

The IAAF announced that there has been coverage in more than 200 countries. In Korea, there were 65 million viewers for the first five days compared to 6.6 million in 2007 when Osaka was the host.

At the half-way point, Pan-European broadcaster Eurosport (who are showing 100 hours of coverage) had a cumulative audience of 28.6 million, which compared to only 37.6 million viewers for the entire championship period in Osaka.

In Japan, TBS had cumulative audiences for the first 5 days of 131 million, with peaks of 11.8 million viewers for the 100m final and the final of the hammer throw, won by Koji Murofushi.

Moscow Next

The World Championships will be held in 2013 in Moscow, which has a logo very similar to its 2012 Olympic bid logo - with the addition of a pole vaulter that looks like Yelena Isinbayeva.

Taking over the championship flag at the closing ceremony was a delegation that included Alexander Zhukov, Deputy Prime Minister and local organizing committee president and Pavec Kolobkov, a vice minister and Olympic gold medalist.

No Caster Controvery

Caster Semenya of South Africa, the most controversial athlete of the 2009 Berllin World Championships because of a gender issue, did not defend her title. Russia's Mariya Savinova was the champion, while Semenya was second.

"In 2009, I was a little kid," she said. "I wasn't thinking when I was running, it was just boom."

She said her silver was a great achievement and she did it to honor Nelson Mandela.

Homepage photo from Getty Images.

Written in Daegu, South Korea by Karen Rosen.

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