By Charlie Bennett,Editor

Copyright dailymail

Keely Hodgkinson and Georgia Hunter Bell have been near inseparable since they arrived in Japan, so it was fitting that a photo finish was needed to reveal who had crossed the line first.

For a few seconds, it appeared the training partners and room-mates in Tokyo would score Great Britain’s first World Championships one-two in 18 years.

Hodgkinson was at the front and Hunter Bell on her shoulder down the final straight, with photographers ready to capture an all-time iconic image for British sport.

As it was, Kenya’s unheralded Lilian Odira nipped in to ruin the shot.

In keeping with a frustrating week for British Athletics, Odira outsprinted them both for a shock victory, while Hunter Bell pulled alongside Hodgkinson and beat her to silver by the width of a chopstick.

The result consigned Great Britain & Northern Ireland to a first World Championships without a gold medal in 22 years, while their tally of five medals is half of what they achieved both in the last World Championships in Budapest two years ago and at last summer’s Olympics.

As metaphors go, the torrential rain that pelted down at the Japan National Stadium shortly after this race was rather fitting.

Hodgkinson put a brave face on it, but her immediate reaction to seeing the result on the scoreboard told the story. The Olympic champion was gutted.

After a hamstring injury kept her off the track for 376 days, it was perhaps too much to expect her to be immediately great again.

Seb Coe predicted Hodgkinson could become the greatest athlete of all-time — British or otherwise — in the build-up. Two comeback Diamond League wins last month were remarkable and suggested this was hers to lose.

In the end, however, that long lay-off took its toll, while it was later revealed Hodgkinson has been ill for the past four days — even if she shrugged that off in the aftermath.

‘It has been an absolute s***show, honestly,’ the 23-year-old said of her season.

‘I think when you look at some of the greats in all sports, there are years where they haven’t done as well, or they’ve missed podiums, or they’ve missed a complete year.

‘Somehow, I’ve managed to stay on that trajectory, which I think is incredible. At the end of my career, I think people will remember what you’ve won, not what you’ve lost.

‘This will just go down as part of my journey and on reflection, I’ll be happy.’

Not as happy as Hunter Bell. Her fairytale story appeared to peak in Paris last summer when she went from parkrun casual to Olympic 1500m bronze medallist in just four years.

But the 31-year-old opted to drop down from 1,500m to 800m this summer and beat the Olympic champion by a hundredth of a second in a personal best time to win world silver. Not bad.

‘I look at what Keely’s achieved at 23 and I think we were running very similar times when we were 11, 12, 13,’ she said. ‘If I went and did what Keely did in my young 20s, then maybe Trev (coach Painter) would be able to do what he did with Keely with me.

‘At the same time, I wouldn’t have met my husband and I wouldn’t have experienced what I’ve experienced in life. So I just think I’m on my own path and it’s cool.’

Odira broke the championship record in winning to complete an excellent week for Kenya’s women, who have won all six golds at every distance from 800m through to the marathon.

It comes against the background of a brewing storm after the World Anti-Doping Agency alleged that Kenya’s Anti-Doping Agency is non-compliant with its code. The east African nation will face consequences on October 2 when the WADA executive committee meets, unless certain conditions are met.

Meanwhile, British bosses admitted the rest of the world has caught up after two record-breaking global events.

Injuries to Matt Hudson-Smith, Josh Kerr and Molly Caudery dashed three medal chances, but a return of zero relay medals when they bagged five in Paris last year has badly hurt.

The women’s 4x100m team of Dina Asher-Smith, Amy Hunt, Desiree Henry and Daryll Neita came closest but finished fourth behind USA, Jamaica and Germany, while the men’s 4x400m team could only manage sixth.

‘The marginal advantage we had has gone,’ said performance director Paula Dunn. ‘I would clearly say, before Budapest, five medals would have been average.

‘We would have said five to seven is generally our range. But now, the boundaries change and so the expectations are higher.

‘Rightly so, because we want to be one of the best nations. But sometimes you have those years where it’s a rebuild year and this for us is definitely that.’

In other Sunday events, Morgan Lake was joint-seventh in the high jump and George Mills came last in the 5000m final.

Both were a footnote in comparison to that breathtaking British double in the 800m.