By Clayton Goodwin, ContributorMAURICE GREENE, Gail Devers, Tim Montgomery, Debbie Ferguson, Jonathan Edwards. The big names came and went away empty-handed.
Others, including Haile 1Gebrselassie and Suriyye Ayhan, won something but it was not what had been expected Youth, as shown in the 18 year-olds Eliud Kipchoge and Tirunesh Dibaba, came to the fore.
The guard was changing, if not quite yet changed, at the ninth IAAF World Championships in Athletics at the Stade de France in Paris last week.
It has happened, surprisingly, in the year before, not after, the celebration of the Olympic Games at Athens. The change has a Caribbean complexion - underpinned by Jamaica's five medals.
The character of the Commonwealth Games a year ago was irrelevant. While it was a relief that the playing of 'Advance Australia Fair' at seemingly every medal ceremony at Manchester was reduced the almost total absence of Australian victories was somewhat eerie, and the punch anticipated from the Bahamas failed to materialise.
Even the erstwhile Caribbean content of the Canadian performance was now almost negligible. The final of the men's 100 metres was a portrait in miniature.
Two entrants from the Caribbean, two from the United Kingdom, two from the US and two from Nigeria and they finished in that order. Who would have thought that St Kitts and Nevis would win more gold medals than the United Kingdom or even Jamaica!
The cool and quiet Kim Collins pounced on the excitement of controversy following the disqualification of Jon Drummond in Paris as he had on the sensational crash of Dwain Chambers and Mark Lewis-Francis in Manchester.
The runner-up from Trinidad & Tobago was not that country's long-time front-runner Ato Boldon, but Darrel Brown, one of the several 18-year-olds whose star shone brightly.
Felix Sanchez of the Dominican Republic, clear winner of the men's 400 metres hurdles and Ana Guevara of Mexico, conqueror of Lorraine Fenton in the women's 400m, represented respectively the islands and the Central American continental mainland of the Caribbean.
Yoandri Betanzos of Cuba and Leevan Sands of the Bahamas took silver and bronze medals in the men's triple-jump - with another Cuban, David Giralt, fourth. Yet, the influence of the Caribbean diaspora was marked elsewhere.
The UK West Indian heritage input was disappointing primarily because so much more had been expected. Darren Campbell was one of the tournament's great competitors - he went to the post a dozen or so times in heats and finals in winning the men's 100m bronze, coming a close fourth in the 200m and sharing a 4x100m silver medal with Chambers, Christian Malcolm and Marlon Devonish (and, from the preliminary rounds, Lewis-Francis).
Perdita Felicien, a Canadian of St. Lucian lineage, took advantage of veteran Gail Devers' clipping two hurdles to win that heat of the women's 100m hurdles and, in a considerable upset, beat Brigitte Foster in the final.
The entire French team which took the women's 4x100m relay gold medal from the grasp of the powerful Americans - Patricia Girard, Muriel Hurtis, Sylviane Felix and Christine Arron - were all of Guadeloupe/Martinique heritage.
There was even a Jamaican in the Slovenian team!
For decades UK West Indian heritage athletes have dreamed, and talked, of a Caribbean Diaspora Championship with powerful teams from North America, the United Kingdom, Western Europe and the countries of the region, themselves, participating.
Now that would be something on a par with the Cricket World Cup - at least - to put the Caribbean on the map ... centre-page.
