MATT FINISH COMES UP JUST SHORT

It's silver by a sliver for a crestfallen Hudson-Smith

- Andy Dunn

MATTHEW HUDSON-SMITH briefly glanced up at the giant screen in front of him inside the Stade de France.

The screen showed he had spreadeagled a high-quality field but one man was scything through the stragglers.

That man was the American, Quincy Hall. Hudson-Smith probably did not feel the inevitability of the outcome, but 70,000 spectators inside the arena did.

There was a golden momentum about Hall and there was nothing the brilliant Hudson-Smith could do about it. When the 29-year-old from Wolverhampton next looked up at the screen, it confirmed Hall had pipped him by four hundredths of a second.

The first word that he shouted was short and unprintable, but when that screen ratified the timings, he would have felt no need to curse.

Yes, he came here with a belief he would win gold.

Yes, he came here as the in-form 400m runner.