Baldock proves selectors wrong

The 26-year-old did eventually take his place and produced his best form of the season as Britain finished a highly creditable fifth, but only after Tim Benjamin withdrew at the 11th hour with a hamstring injury.

Baldock ran a superb 45.1 second leg, a time comparable to Chris Rawlinson's 44.9 and the 44.8 run by anchor man Daniel Caines but over a second quicker than Ian Mackie (46.2), whom the selectors originally plumped for at his expense.

His indignation stemmed from the semi-final heat where he was the second quickest of the British quartet in a split of 45.4.

Baldock, who was informed of his scheduled exclusion at 9.30pm on the night before the final, said: "Once I found out I was a bit annoyed especially because my time was the second fastest in the semi-final. They picked someone who was half a second slower than me. I had a meeting and I was just saying it didn't make sense but I agreed to differ with them. They had the team for the final in their minds already."

But he got his chance in the end, being notified of the change 60 seconds prior to the teams entering the call-up room 35 minutes before the actual race.

Not expecting to compete, Baldock didn't warm-up as thoroughly as usual and hadn't taken his bicarbonate of soda tablets which offset lactic acid build-up at the end of a race.

Asked if the disrupted preparations may not have been a bad thing, he continued: "Yeah, I think so. I wasn't nervous at all. We had no expectations and I definitely enjoyed it. Some of the management came over and said 'well done, it proved you should have run in the final'."