Mo Farah stands alone as Team GB's London 2017 medal hopes fall

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The British team are still confident they can achieve their medal target of six in London 2017 despite their hopes of glory last night coming to nothing.

Last night, Laura Muir agonisingly finished fourth in the 1,500m, while a tearful Sophie Hitchon, a bronze medallist at the Olympics, was seventh in the hammer.

Andrew Pozzi — another tipped for a medal before the championships — failed to qualify for the 110m hurdles final. It followed on from a disappointing heptathlon for Katarina Johnson-Thompson, leaving the hosts joint eighth in the medal table with only Mo Farah’s gold after four days of competition.

But a spokesman for British Athletics this morning said: “We’re confident we’ll get the six. As it stands, we’re certainly not panicking.”

Farah looks on course for another medal — potentially gold — in the 5,000m but the team still face an arduous task to attain the six to eight podiums set by UK Sport as part of their funding.

The team has been assured £27.1million for the next Olympic cycle up to Tokyo, which could be cut by UK Sport. But British Athletics insisted there was “no internal or external pressure” nor that there was any suggestion that particular pot of cash was under threat.

Muir looks an outside bet at best for a medal in the 5,000m, while on the women’s side, Dina Asher-Smith is only just returning to fitness to realistically aspire for a medal in the 200m although Lorrain Ugen has supposedly regained her best form.

In the men’s, there is the possibility of a 200m medal from Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake and Danny Talbot, such hopes aided by the withdrawal of Isaac Makwala with a bout of gastroenteritis and Andre de Grasse’s absence with injury.

Tom Bosworth is in better form over the 20km walk than when he was sixth at the Olympics. But even were he to shine would still leave heavy reliance on the relay teams to salvage medals to meet the target.

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