Britain won two medals on the final day of competition at the European Championships - but also suffered more sprint relay misery in Helsinki.
Jo Pavey claimed silver in the 10,000 metres at the age of 38, while the men's 4x400m relay team also took silver after being overhauled by Belgium in the home straight.
However, the day after Britain's women failed to secure a place at their home Olympics, the men's 100m quartet failed to finish their final after the experienced duo of Christian Malcolm and Dwain Chambers did not exchange the baton following the first leg.
It was the latest in a long line of relay woe in major championships, with dropped batons at the Olympics in Atlanta (1996) and Sydney (2000) and the World Championships in Edmonton (2001), along with a disqualification at the last Olympics in Beijing and the World Championships in Daegu (2011).
They also went out in the first round at the last European Championships in Barcelona when a poor changeover between Marlon Devonish and Mark Lewis-Francis saw them finish fifth in their heat.
This time the baton never even got that far as Malcolm lost momentum around the bend and was unable to get it to Chambers, who was anxious to get a good start with France's individual 100m champion Christophe Lemaitre on his outside.
"I will take responsibility," Malcolm said.
"I lost momentum and it's my job to get the baton into Dwain and I didn't get it done. It was an opportunity for us all and we have messed up.
"We thought we were going to win and we were all up for it today. It's nothing to do with a lack of practice, it's just one of those things. I know we like to play the blame game in our country and I will take responsibility.
"No doubt we'll get slaughtered in the press for it but it's not for want of trying."
Earlier in the night, Pavey was unable to stay with eventual champion Dulce Felix of Portugal when she made the decisive break with eight laps to go, and found herself third at the bell behind Ukraine's Olha Skrypak.
But the veteran Devon athlete overtook Skrypak in the home straight to secure silver in 31 minutes 49.03 seconds, with Ireland's Fionnuala Britton in fourth. Pavey's team-mate Charlotte Purdue was sixth in 32mins 28.46secs, with Gemma Steel ninth in 32:46.32.
Pavey only returned to track action after her Olympic marathon gamble backfired in April.
She opted to miss the London Marathon and hope that her time from last year's race was enough to claim the last available place alongside Paula Radcliffe and Mara Yamauchi, but watched on TV as both Claire Hallissey and Freya Murray eclipsed her time, with Hallissey subsequently selected.
"It's been a real blessing in disguise," said Pavey, who is likely to run both the 5,000 and 10,000m at the Olympics.
"I would have taken a marathon place if I was given it because it would have been a massive gamble not to accept it.
"It was kind of nice not have any choice and it's made me feel young. I'm really thrilled to get a medal. Doing track this year after two years on the road has been really fun."
There were also near misses in the women's 4x400m relay, where Britain were fourth after anchor runner Eilidh Child appeared to be blocked just short of the line by Czech Denisa Rosolova, and the men's long jump, where JJ Jegede was also fourth.
Sophie Hitchon finished a disappointing 11th in the hammer final, while Gianni Frankis and William Sharman failed to reach the 110m hurdles final.
