Collins is a welcome champion

In the closest global final ever staged, the other wannabes seemed to be straining so overly-hard to be the one to succeed the master. It also turned out to be the slowest since Carl Lewis won the first edition 20 years ago - just about the same time that St Kitts gained its independence from Britain, incidentally. But Collins just did what he always does - flow with silky smooth economy.

Chambers, the favourite, tightened up when everyone expected him to surge away. He finished fourth in 10.08sec, raising old questions about his temperament at the most exalted level. Campbell, in contrast, demonstrated that, like his mentor Linford Christie, he just improves and grows as a championship performer with age as he earned a bronze, Britain's sole medal so far, in the same time.

Darrel Brown, a dazzling Trinidadian prospect at just 18, sneaked the silver in 10.08, too. He may be the future but no one in the field begrudged the present to the thin ghost who'd stolen in to become the first sprinter since anyone could remember to win from lane one.

He'd beaten his three pursuers by one-hundredth of a second in 10.07. It was so tight Campbell squinted at the photo and half-joked to his manager "Can we appeal?", before shrugging that he didn't mind because Collins was "such a likeable guy".

There's no silly posturing with Collins. He hated Jon Drummond's theatrical stalling in Sunday's great false start drama and reckoned the American would deserve any punishment which either the US team or the IAAF should impose today. Yet because Collins is so relaxed, he was also the best equipped to let the drama wash over him.

"I'm the only natural sprinter ever," he said, making it sound somehow not like a boast. "No weights, no vitamins, no protein powders - just raw talent. I'm not one of those hardworking sprinters. I'm more easy going. I really don't feel you should kill yourself in training."

Collins, number six in a family of 11 kids, got into athletics by bunking off school to watch local club runners on a patch of grass with mountainous undulations which passed as its only track. Inevitably, he had to go looking to the US, where he's a social psychology student in Texas, yet he still spends three months a year back in his homeland.

"Track's dying at home," he said. "People think that my success might make more people want to run now but they're even lazier than I am."

If only Chambers could find this secret to relaxed running, though. Collins shrugs modestly that, at 27, his reign might be over at next year's Olympics once the Americans and Brits "come gunning for revenge". But our European champion looked paralysed by tension here. Is it a coincidence he's failed to win a single race outside Britain this summer?

He could learn, too, from Campbell, who, at 29, doesn't have Chambers's raw speed now but squeezes the maximum from every championship race. "It's all about confidence and maturity, and now Darren's believing in himself. He'll be a threat in the 200m now but Dwain will be back stronger," said Christie, who once managed Chambers.

Campbell reckoned he'd put some of his prize money towards buying a home for his mum in Florida. Collins's ambition, though, was merely to see the St Kitts government build a track on the island. "I don't make enough to build it myself," he pondered. Just give their sleepy hero time, though.