Doping in spotlight despite Beijing fireworks

While sprinter Usain Bolt led a barrage of superstar performances at the Bird’s Nest stadium, scepticism was also not hard to find following allegations of widespread drug abuse by elite athletes.

Britain’s Coe won a narrow vote to succeed 82-year-old Lamine Diack as president of <g data-gr-id="37">world</g> body the <g data-gr-id="38">IAAF,</g> and improving the besmirched image of athletics will be his top priority.

“We are more than a discussion about test tubes, blood and urine,” Coe told reporters on Sunday. “It is ostensibly a clean sport, we have our challenges... and no one would deny that.”

However, after thousands of test results were leaked to media before the championships, the issue of doping was never far away and many of the positive headlines were accompanied by darker questions.

Kenya finished top of the medals table, but they were also the only team to fail doping tests after two of their athletes were caught out by pre-competition controls.

Bolt’s brilliant sprint treble after <g data-gr-id="30">overcoming</g> injury came at the expense of twice-banned American Justin Gatlin -- one of four former doping offenders in the 100m final.

But despite intense pressure and pelvic problems this year, Bolt kept his renowned cool to win the 100m by one-hundredth of a second over Gatlin, before dominating the 200m and anchoring Jamaica to 4x100m gold.

Next up is the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, where Bolt may call a halt to one of <g data-gr-id="32">athletics’</g> great careers after bossing sprinting since the 2008 Games in Beijing.

“I’m going to try my utmost best to really get on the right track early in the season and just hopefully can go on to Rio fully ready to run my best,” vowed Bolt.

“I came out here and proved everybody that you can never call Usain Bolt out,” he added. “I’m a champion and I show up when it matters.”

Jamaica’s Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce won gold in the women’s 100m individual and relay races, but the only world record in Beijing went to American <g data-gr-id="31">decathlete</g> Ashton Eaton.

Eaton, 27, clinched the record score of 9,045 points after his lung-busting 4min 17.52sec in the 1,500m, collapsing in exhaustion as he crossed the line.