91Èȱ¬

Greene is European and Commonwealth Games 400m hurdles champion. Photo: AFP

When I spoke to him three days ago, he said he was over the stomach bug that had laid him low at the Welsh training-camp in Doha. Watching his semi-final, you wondered if it had made a late comeback. He was so weary that he had to sit down before doing his post-race interview with my 91Èȱ¬ 5 live colleague Kath Merry.

Within the main narrative of this 400m hurdles final was also an entirely Welsh subplot: the quite open rivalry and antipathy between Greene and Williams, drawn in the lane just inside him.

Through the first 100m the lean Greene was the first to show, reigning champion LJ van Zyl holding him in the lane outside, Williams back with the also-rans.

As that pattern held coming into the home straight, the pre-race predictions looked to be holding. What wasn't part of the script was the way Van Zyl honed in on Greene, metre by metre, until coming off the final hurdle the South African was just half a stride down and closing.

Greene, gaunt of face, victorious in every one of his big races this year, was not to be vanquished. Eyes narrowed, mouth gaping, he held his form and held the narrow advantage across the line.

Up went the wagging finger, on came the relieved smile, out stuck the chest with WALES written on it in large letters.

No-one could blame him for revelling in the moment. On the 10th of the 10th in '10, he had secured Wales's 10th Commonwealth gold medal, and their first on the track since Thomas's 400m triumph in Kuala Lumpur 12 years ago. It also saw him join a select and special band of Welshmen to have won both European and Commonwealth titles in the same season: Lynn Davies, Jackson, Thomas and now Greene.

"My season couldn't have gone any better," he said afterwards. "I had loads of Welsh people coming up to me all day saying, we haven't had a gold yet, you can do it. It's not bad when it's one pr two, but when it's 25 or 30...

"But it's been a brilliant year. There's nothing else I could possibly have won."

What might sound to some ears like braggadocio is actually an entirely fair comment. Greene was victorious at the British trials, European Team championships, European Championships, Continental Cup and now the Commonwealths. He has gone under 48 seconds, moved to second on the all-time British lists and beaten the undisputed world number one Bershawn Jackson en route.

In a fortnight when questions have been raised about the standard of athletics on display, here is one man who is truly world-class.

There appeared to be plenty of romantic reasons for Malcolm to secure 200m gold too. 12 years ago, as a fresh-faced youngster with the world junior 100m and 200m titles in his back pocket, he kick-started his senior career with Commonwealth silver behind the similarly-smooth Julian Golding.

After years of frustration and injury, his silver at the Europeans - a dip of the chest away from gold - seemed to suggest the sweetest of swansongs. He even had a race number - 1958 - that matched the year the Empire Games was held in his native South Wales.

Instead, England's Leon Baptiste delivered on his own unfulfilled promise to seal a win that was in its own way just as poetic.

Baptiste had missed out on joining Malcolm in the British squad for the Europeans in Barcelona only after being asked by head coach Charles van Commenee to do a race-off against Marlon Devonish at the team's holding-camp in Portugal.

Baptiste, given very little warning and carrying a slight injury, messed up and missed out. His gold medal here will be a very popular one among many British athletes back home.

"This has made up for it," he said afterwards. "Commonmwealth champion - I can't believe it."

Malcolm, magnanimous and mature, was generous with his praise.

"I'm happy - I'm not going to hide it," he said. "I came here for the gold, but I'm on podium. It's amazing for me to run for Wales; this is only time we get to do it for our country on the global stage, and I'm delighted to come here and win a medal."

At Greene's medal ceremony, the Tom Jones of earlier in the evening was replaced by the more sober but equally stirring Hen Wlad fy Nhadau.

"You're a star Dai Greene," tweeted Baulch, Commonwealth medallist himself at two different Games. Few in his home country would disagree.