Doha: India's mixed campaign at the IAAF World Athletics Championships ended with Gopi Thonakal finishing 21st in men's marathon on Sunday.
Laggards at the world stage, the 27-member Indian team was not expected to win any medal but it performed better than expected in this world championships with three finalists - in mixed 4x400m relay, men's 3000m steeplechase and women's javelin throw.
Long jumper Anju Bobby George's bronze in Paris in 2003 still remained India's only medal at the showpiece event.
Out of the three finals, steeplechaser Avinash Sable and the mixed 4x400m relay team booked Tokyo Olympics quotas while javelin thrower Annu Rani finished a creditable eight.
Annu became the first Indian woman to qualify for javelin throw finals while Avinash broke his own national record twice in three days.
India had three finalists in the 2015 edition in Beijing while only one Indian made it to the finals in the last edition in London in 2017.
The 31-year-old Gopi clocked 2 hours 15 minute 57 seconds to end among the top half of 55 runners who completed the race on the Corniche under 29 degree Celcius temperature and around 50 per cent humidity.
73 athletes had started the race which began just before midnight out of which 18 did not finish.
Gopi, who had won the Asian marathon title in China in 2017 with a time of 2:15:48, has a season's best of 2:13:39 -- also his personal best -- which he had clocked in Seoul in March. He had finished 25th at the 2016 Rio Olympics and 28th in 2017 World Championships.
He had gone to this World Championships with an aim of qualifying for the 2020 Olympics but he failed to touch the 2:11:30 qualifying mark.
Lelisa Desisa and Mosinet Geremew led an Ethiopian one-two, clocking 2:10:40 and 2:10:44 respectively while Kenya's Amos Kipruto took the bronze with 2:10:51.
US bag three more golds
Sprint hurdler Nia Ali led a final day gold rush for the United States as the curtain came down on the World Championships. Ali powered to victory in the 100 metres hurdles to upset world record holder Keni Harrison with a time of 12.34sec at the Khalifa Stadium on Sunday.
"I've been training really hard, especially coming back from having my kids," said 30-year-old mother-of-two Ali, who was accompanied by both of her children on her lap of honour.
"These ladies have been raising the bar all year so I knew what I had to do."
Ali's win was one of three final day gold medals for the USA, who finished on top of the medal table with 14 golds, 11 silver and four bronze.
Kenya, meanwhile, finished in second spot with five golds, two silvers and four bronze.
The final day's action drew a line under 10 days of competition at the championships, held in the Middle East for the first time.
Despite problems at the start of the championships with sweltering heat and humidity and swathes of empty seats, Sunday's action played out to a packed house.
"It is pretty clear to us that on athlete performance, this is the best world championships that we've ever had," International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) President Sebastian Coe told reporters.
The United States' other gold medals came in the 4x400m relay events, with comfortable victories for their men's and women's quartets.
The women's relay victory meant a second gold medal for Dalilah Muhammad, who swept to victory with a world record-breaking display in the 400m hurdles on Friday.
Muhammad ran a blistering third leg for the USA to help set up a win in 3min 18.92sec.
More gold for Felix
The USA win also saw Allyson Felix extend her record tally of world championship gold medals.
The 33-year-old American, who did not run in the final but featured in the heats, now has 13 golds.
The US men meanwhile were similarly convincing winners in the 4x400, with hurdler Rai Benjamin anchoring their team to gold in a world-leading time of 2:56.69.
Elsewhere Sunday, Kenya's Timothy Cheruiyot produced one of the performances of the games with a superb win in the 1,500m.
The 23-year-old conjured a lung-busting display of front running to win gold, hitting the front in the opening lap at a ferocious pace and not letting up.
Cheruiyot won in 3min 29.26sec, banishing the memory of a string of silver medal performances which included a second place in London two years ago.
Algeria's 2012 Olympic champion Taoufik Makhloufi took silver in 3:31.38 whilst Poland's Marcin Lewandowski took the bronze in a time of 3:31.46.
Joshua Cheptegei of Uganda was another silver to gold convert in the 10,000 metres.
Cheptegei raced home in 26min 48.36sec after a thrilling final lap battle with Yomif Kejelcha of Ethiopia. The win came two years after Cheptegei won silver in London.
In the field events, Anderson Peters won only the second ever gold medal for Grenada with victory in the javelin.
The 21-year-old US college student stunned the field with a winning throw of 86.89m, bettering his personal best by more than two metres.
Former Olympic and world 400m champion Kirani James is the only other athlete to win a gold medal for Grenada.
"Coming in here I knew I wanted a medal but I didn't know what colour it was going to be," said Peters.
"After the first round I decided it was going to be be gold." Malaika Mihambo of Germany won the gold medal in the women's long jump with a leap of 7.30m.
It was a first global medal for Mihambo, the European champion in 2018, who narrowly missed out on bronze at the Rio Olympics in 2016.
Maryna Bekh-Romanchuk took silver with a jump of 6.92m while Nigeria's Ese Brume claimed bronze with a best of 6.91m.
(With inputs from PTI and AFP)
