It was a night when people were passing batons as comfortably as kidney stones and Phillips Idowu's pre-Games confidence might have been used as a stick to beat him with. But if sticks and stones broke the bones of the Great Britain relay team, at least the triple jumper emerged with a silver medal.

Idowu's shtick this summer has been to exude bottomless confidence. He entered the Olympics with the world indoor title, the two longest jumps in the world this year and an assured prediction that Jonathan Edwards's world record of 18.29 metres would soon be his. Confidence is wonderful, but it meant that Idowu's silver medal was tinged with the disappointment that he remains in the 2000 Olympic champion's shadow.

Idowu, with his red hair and eight body piercings, has long been the polar opposite of the clean-cut vicar's son, despite the latter's recent crisis of faith and newfound earring, and their Olympic medal collections remain another notable difference. Idowu deserves recognition for a great year and jumped a season's best of 17.62metres yesterday, but it was five centimetres short of Nelson Évora's gold-medal mark.

A medal is a medal, but where Germaine Mason's silver in the high jump was a bonus, Idowu's was tainted by the knowledge that this was the first competition he had not won all year. Doubting Hackney's hero had become a hackneyed game and even sometime critic Edwards said that there was no longer any question about which Idowu would turn up.

Back to reality for golden generation

Olympic heroes will discover if the last 17 days has been a life-changing experience or a glorious but brief interlude

• Team GB to be rewarded with gold for gold

• Hard work starts now as British sailors look towards London 2012

• Public support gained from success in Beijing needs to last four years

BACKGROUND

• How the Brits became world beaters

• London double-decker arrives in Beijing

• Olympics proves capacity for greatness

• New dawn for British sport as Olympic sun sets

Related Links

• Team GB aim to deliver knockout

• Rogge fails to see champion in Bolt

• Felix is blown away by Jamaican whirlwind

He started with 17.51 metres to lead. Évora, heading for Portugal's first Olympic gold since 1996, responded with 17.56 in the second round. Back came Idowu with 17.62, but when Évora, the world champion, wrestled back the lead, the pressure mounted.

It came down to one last jump and the chance to banish all the criticism about lacking the head for the big occasion. “I went down fighting,” Idowu said, but a final effort of 16.41 belied the claim. “I can't believe I'm standing here with an Olympic silver medal and I'm p***ed off. It hurts. I'm upset. I came here to achieve a lot more.”

It was the first Olympic final in which more than two people jumped 17.50metres, Leevan Sands, of the Bahamas, making it a close-run competition, so it was scarcely a case of Idowu shirking his opportunity. He is a totally different figure from the one who no-jumped his way out of the Athens Olympics in 2004, but he wants more. “Until I have achieved what Jonathan has, he is always going to be ranked ahead of me,” he griped.

If Idowu was distraught, then the relay team were in the trauma ward. More than £500,000 has been invested in the 4x100 metres squad since 2004, but after watching the United States botch their baton exchange, Britain duly followed suit.

The US have form in this department and are the sum of mismatched parts, but Britain were the defending Olympic champions. “Unfortunately, for the next four years, I'm going to be remembered as the guy who messed up the baton at the Olympics,” Craig Pickering, the guilty man, said.

Pickering deserves credit for fronting up for Britain's exit, but this was a huge embarrassment because the relay has risen in importance in tandem with a decline in individual medal hopes. Britain have a specialist relay coach in Michael Khmel, a Russian brought in after the 2006 Commonwealth Games shambles in which Britain crashed out in the heats after more baton rouge faces, and this event was seen as a decent medal chance.

The problem at the Bird's Nest stadium came on the final changeover. Marlon Devonish, the sole survivor from Athens, was approaching at speed, but Pickering set off too early. He realised the error and was reduced to a pigeon-toed shuffle as he tried to stay in the changeover box. He got hold of it eventually and ran home second, but Britain were then disqualified from their heat. Devonish was generous enough to shoulder the guilt, but he was not fooling Pickering.

“I cost the country a medal,” the 21-year-old said. “I've let myself down, I've let the team down, I've let the country down. It's all my fault. The guys will say it's not, but I accept full responsibility.

“There's a check mark and you go when the athlete crosses it. I don't usually have much problem doing that, but I went a bit early. We would have won a medal for sure.”

Britain have been here before. They failed to make the finals in Atlanta 12 years ago and in Sydney in 2000 because of Teflon-esque skills, but Darren Campbell, part of the gold-medal team from Athens, pointed the finger squarely at Khmel and, by implication, Dave Collins, the UK Athletics performance director. “It has to be the coach doesn't it?” he said. “He has been brought in to do this. It's his job. But why is he here? Why have we done that? We had a team with a great bond, it was special, and that has all gone. I would have looked after the relay team, so why did they have to go outside?”

Campbell said nerves had got to Pickering, but insisted that Khmel should have realised that and picked Christian Malcolm, a more seasoned athlete who has had a good Games and had a cameo in Usain Bolt's 200 metres final. “With the Americans going out there was a medal there and your heart starts banging,” Campbell said. “It got to Pickering. He should not have been on that leg. You need the experience and Christian has that.”

The women did make it through to today's final as the fourth-fastest team, while the United States dropped the baton again. “I'm telling people it was the stick's fault,” Lauryn Williams, of the US team, said. That was a novel excuse and the Britain women then showed a neat turn of phrase themselves. “The men have dropped the baton so it's up to us to pick it up,” Emily Freeman said. Ouch.