Nobody wanted to see it end the way it did on Saturday evening, with Usain Bolt face down with only his sprint relay colleagues and a chap with a wheelchair for company.
But the organisers of these World Championships gave him a rather more fitting send-off on Sunday night, presenting him with a souvenir to remind him of happier, more successful days in London.
He might have looked slightly underwhelmed by the framed piece of running track that was unveiled by Lord Coe but the montage on the giant stadium screens then provided us with a neat reminder of his prowess in a pair of spikes.
His admiring public were delighted to simply see him back on his feet again, and able to close a most eventful 10 days of track and field with one last lap of honour before strolling into retirement.
Bolt stopped at the start of the 200 metres as well as the 100m. ‘I was saying goodbye to the fans but I was also saying goodbye to my events,’ said the Jamaican superstar. ‘I was saying goodbye to everything and I almost cried.’
Afterwards he appeared in a press conference room more densely populated with reporters than it had been all week, but this was not the Bolt who so memorably walked on to the stage here five years ago after completing another individual sprint double. ‘I am a legend, bask in my glory,’ he jokingly declared then.
His mood was more sombre this time, the great man clearly saddened as much by the manner of his departure as the fact that his race has been run. ‘It’s been a tough few days,’ he said, wincing from the pain in that injured hamstring as he climbed the steps on to the stage.
‘But after losing the 100m someone reminded me that Muhammad Ali lost his last fight and what has happened at these championships isn’t going to change what I’ve done in the sport.’
He can reflect on one of the finest careers in sport. In athletics he certainly has no equal. It had, he conceded, been a far from perfect exit. But he dismissed the suggestion he should have retired after dominating the sprints for a third successive Olympic Games, in Rio.
‘I have no regrets,’ he said. ‘I ran this season for my fans. They wanted me to be here.’
He deserves credit for attempting one last hurrah when he clearly knew he was not in shape.
Now, however, he intends to party. ‘I’m looking forward to having a drink,’ he said. ‘And then my coach wants me to be his assistant.’ Bolt as your coach? Imagine that.
