A blanket finish for the men's gold medal in the 110m Hurdles (L-R) Terrence Trammell of United States (silver), Ryan Brathwaite of Barbados (gold) and David Payne of the USA (bronze) (© Getty Images)
Okay, hands up. Who believed before this week that Ryan Brathwaite of Barbados would win the World 110m Hurdles title?
It would not be prudent to call his victory lucky or a "fluke" - a better way of looking at it is that he simply took advantage of a situation in which World record-holder Dayron Robles and defending champion Liu Xiang of China were absent - something which other more established stars were unable to do.
US duo Terrence Trammell and David Payne had the misfortune of continuing their trend of picking up minor medals at global championships and replicated their 2-3 finish from the last IAAF World Championships in Osaka.
Brathwaite had impressed the most in the heats and semis, but he had never before made the final of a senior global championships, so it was still unknown as to how he would cope with the occasion and his new-found favourites tag.
But the 2005 World Youth silver medallist more than 'coped'. Brathwaite clipped the first hurdle and had the slowest reaction time (0.157), but his start was solid nonetheless. Payne and Trammell, who flanked Brathwaite in lanes three and five respectively, matched the man from Barbados stride-for-stride, hurdle-for-hurdle. It was a three-way battle for the three pieces of precious metal.
Coming off the final hurdle, you could have thrown a blanket over the leading trio, but on inspection of the photo finish and slow-mo replay, Brathwaite had won it on a well-timed lean.
His reward was threefold - a gold medal, a national record, and $60,000 in prize money. Trammell and Payne both clocked 13.15, but the former was awarded silver.
Britain's William Sharman was arguably the second biggest surprise performer of the race. The former decathlete came into 2009 with a PB of 13.49 which dated back to 2006. He improved that to 13.44 in late July and earned a last-minute selection to the British team.
Here in Berlin he ran 13.52 to finish third in his heat, before storming to a semi final victory in a PB of 13.38 earlier this evening. Proving it was no fluke, Sharman impressed further in the final and was just a stride behind the leaders, crossing the tape in fourth with another PB of 13.30, taking him to fifth on the UK all-time list.
Evergreen Maurice Wignall, the consummate championship performer from Jamaica, once again raised his game to clock a season's best of 13.31 in fifth place. Petr Svoboda of the Czech Republic was sixth in 13.38, while Dwight Thomas of Jamaica was seventh (13.56), one hundredth ahead of eight-placer Ji Wei of China.
Brathwaite is the first ever World champion in any athletics event from Barbados. He is also the youngest ever World 110m Hurdles champion, which is quite an accolade given the dearth of young talent we have seen in recent years - namely Xiang, Robles and Ladji Doucoure.
Robles, meanwhile, will have to wait another two years to get another chance to win his first World Championships. But given the way Brathwaite has improved in the past 12 months and raised his game here in Berlin, even a fully-fit Robles and Xiang could have their work cut out to take on Brathwaite in 2011.
Jon Mulkeen for the IAAF
