One gold gave the US a record-breaking haul at the World Athletics Championships Sunday. For Britain and Kenya, it averted utter humiliation.
Olympic and world 400m champion Jeremy Wariner brought home the baton in the 1,600m relay, the last event of the championship, to give the US its 14th gold medal, breaking the record it set at the Stuttgart championships in 1993.
Earlier, Britain's hard-luck marathon runner Paula Radcliffe won her first major title and Benjamin Limo dented Ethiopia's long-distance domination on the track.
Also, Moroccan-born Rashid Ramzi of Bahrain clinched an unprecedented middle distance double, adding the 800m to his 1,500m title by holding off Olympic champion Yuriy Borzakovskiy on the home stretch.
After failing to reach the final at last year's Olympics, this was his breakthrough competition.
"I learned from my mistakes in Athens," the 25-year-old Ramzi said.
Limo had the weight of Kenya on his shoulders but still managed to rush past Ethiopia's Sileshi Sihine on the home straight to win Kenya's only gold, still a huge disappointment for the African nation.
"I knew the last lap would be high speed, and I still felt OK," said Limo, who later said he would name his son, who was born on Monday, Helsinki.
Cuban Olympic champion Osleidys Menendez set a javelin world record of 71.70m on her first throw, improving on her old mark by 16cm, to win the gold.
She was the third woman to win US$160,000 for setting a world record and winning gold. Olimpiada Ivanova set one in the 20km walk and fellow Russian Yelena Isinbayeva added another in the pole vault.
On a good day for Russia, 400m hurdles champion Yuliya Pechonkina won a second gold as the leadoff woman for her country's 1,600m relay squad.
In the women's 1,500m, Russia thought it reigned supreme with a triple, led by defending champion Tatyana Tomashova, but runner-up Yuliya Chizhenko was disqualified for impeding pre-race favorite Maryam Yusuf Jamal of Bahrain.
In the worst high jump competition in world championship history, Yuriy Krymarenko of Ukraine won the gold by clearing 2.32m.
A mere 2.29m was enough for Victor Moya of Cuba and Yaroslav Rybakov of Russia to share silver.
Radcliffe is already world record holder in the marathon, but what she really craved was a major title.
Head bobbing as ever, she thrived in damp, cool English-summer weather and led for almost the whole race before finishing well ahead of Catherine Ndereba of Kenya and Constantina Tomescu-Dita of Romania.
"It was my plan to keep a good pace going," said Radcliffe, who finished in a championship-record of 2 hours, 20 minutes, 57 seconds.
Gone were the tears and heartbreak from the Athens Olympics, where she came in as favorite only to drop out of both the marathon and 10,000m. And she was dogged by doubts in Helsinki after she finished ninth in the 10,000m.
This time, her smile was flashing as she crossed the line and clasped her hands over her head, redemption finally delivered.
"A lot a things went wrong in Athens. I was a lot more confident here," Radcliffe said.
And while the US was wallowing in gold, Britain and Kenya wallowed in misery for most of the championships, without any win until Radcliffe and Limo came through on the final day.
It pushed Britain up from 30th in the medal rankings to 15th, way behind the dominating Americans. It highlighted the work ahead for Britain, which stages the 2012 Olympics in London.
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