Merry joins the Freeman party

Yet while there could be no argument whose night this was, Merry was not about to play an insignificant bit part for this was to be the race when the one-time girl prodigy came of age. Still an absolute beginner at the one-lap event in only her second full year at the discipline, she has been transformed under Linford Christie's stewardship into a powerful challenger.

Running smoothly off the bend, she was momentarily in challenging distance of Freeman and Jamaica's Lorraine Graham. Yet Freeman is a deceptive athlete. She looks slightly ungainly but has tremendous reserves of strength. When Graham attacked, she found an extra gear to roll her way to victory in a searing 49.11 seconds.

Merry reckoned she had found reserves she wasn't sure she possessed as she rumbled on to cross the line in 49.72sec. Not only had she become the first British woman since Kathy Cook in Los Angeles 16 years earlier to win a one-lap medal, but she had demolished the 50-second barrier, an impenetrable obstacle for British women for so long. "It was a privilege to be part of a race which will go down in history," she said afterwards.

Better still, Croydon's Donna Fraser, a popular stalwart of the sport, produced a superb late surge to finish fourth and almost caught Merry in another barrier-breaking 49.79sec.

Then, Holmes actually topped them both. Imagine. Two months ago, the 30-year-old former Army PTI Instructor was advised by her orthopaedic surgeon that she'd probably never run again after suffering more injuries than seen in an entire episode of Casualty.

In August, she made a tentative comeback, still recovering from a devastating series of six injuries from hip to groin to achilles.

Yet, here, the 30-year-old was back to the form which made her one of the most formidable middle distance runners in the world five years ago and, for an agonising moment, it almost seemed she would achieve the impossible as, making her steady move through the field, she accelerated so adventurously down the back straight that, coming off the top bend, she had opened daylight over the field.

"I didn't know what I was doing at 200m out," she laughed afterwards, once her tears of joy had subsided. "It wasn't what I planned but this is just unbelievable."

It was too much to hope she could hold off the Mozambique winner Maria Mutola and the world's best this year, Austrian Stephanie Graf, who pushed past her in the last 30 metres, but the bronze, in her best time - 1min 56.64sec - for five years was a wonderful reward for someone who keeps plugging away after suffering so many dreadful injuries down the years.

Jackson could not follow that. With his last attempt to win the Olympic crown, the 33-year-old was simply outgunned in fifth place. After one false start - he had also made one in the semi-final, too - he made a decent start second time around and felt he was still in the hunt coming over the last two barriers.

In fact, his view from lane one was deceptive. By the eighth, he had already been swallowed up. He was just pipped for fourth place by America's defending champion, Allen Johnson, but this was a wholesale changing of the guard. The event's old masters were quite eclipsed by the new star, Cuba's Anier Garcia, who glided away to a majestic triumph in 13 seconds dead, ahead of new American Terrence Trammell (13.16sec) and Mark Crear (13.22).

"I didn't feel as good as I hoped I would and I was tight," said Jackson.

"I had cramp in the bottom of my right foot and I didn't feel happy driving out of the blocks."

His sad championship farewell marks the end of an era but the British women may be creating a new one.