14th July 2013 01:44
The winning time of 38.77 erased by 0.18 the championship record held by France since Erfurt 2005.
Silver went to Poland just 0.04 down while Spain, out in lane eight, collected bronze.
It was a great run on the anchor leg from the Long Jump champion, Eusebio Cáceres, who never gave up the chase that brought Spain home by 0.01 over Germany.
It was so close at the end that Gemili was not sure he had crossed the line first but then the results flashed up and he had his second gold of the week and some measure of consolation for his failure to take a medal at the 200m.
Germany clear winners
Germany ran out clear winners of the women's 4x100m in 43.29 from Great Britain over half a second down.
Bronze went to Italy just 0.03 behind the British quartet.
Bringing the baton home for Britain, Jodie Williams picked up her third medal of these championships.
Tsenov takes steeplechase gold
Mitko Tsenov of Bulgaria won the Steeplechase in a time of 8:32.74 with Spain’s Abdelaziz Merzhoughi taking silver and Italy’s Giuseppe Gerratana bronze.
For the first 2000m it looked as though Fernando Carro of Spain was going to run away with it.
He shot into a clear lead with the field unsure how to respond. But the Spaniard just got on with it, covering the first 1000m in 2:46.35 with his pursuers 50m in arrears with no one interested in closing the gap.
France’s Tanguy Pepiot and Merzoughi seemed to be the only ones showing any interest in responding as 2000m was reached in 5:44.99 but it was still Carro maintaining his metronomic pace.
It was clear from the times, though, that Carro was starting to slow and as he did, the field closed in and with 500m to go swallowed him up.
At the bell in around 7:30, Tsenov took off with Merzhoughi in pursuit but it was to no avail as the Bulgarian kept going to the line.
Gerratana was trailing Pepiot at this point but with 100m to go he sprinted past for a medal.
Tsenov’s only previous win in international competition was at the European Team Championships in Dublin this year.
Johnson-Thompson wins with ease
She may not have competed at a Heptathlon all season, but it hardly mattered as Katerina Johnson-Thomson of Great Britain took gold with a score of 6215.
Silver went to Germany’s Kira Biesenbach while Anastasiya Mokhnyuk moved back into bronze in the final event.
The score represents the Briton’s third best score ever behind her London Olympic total of 6267. She becomes the first Briton to win this event at the U23 Championships.
En route to gold, Johnson-Thompson equalled her best in the hurdles and set a lifetime best in the 200m.
Though under par after her ankle injury at Loughborough a week before she was due to compete in Goetzis, the Briton won in Tampere by the clear margin of over 265 points.
On the final day Johnson-Thompson came out for her first Long Jump and registered a safety first 6.21 which turned out to be the second best of the round. Neither Mokhnyuk nor Anouk Vetter of the Netherlands had gone over 6m so the Briton had momentarily extended her lead.
For her second jump, Johnson-Thompson checked her stride just before the line but still improved to 6.28, so far the furthest anyone had gone. Vetter set a PB but at 5.88 it was not going to threaten the leader.
The Briton left her best until last. Hitting the board to perfection she launched herself to the longest of the day, 6.39 for 972 points and 4733 in total. Job done.
By virtue of the second longest jump, Biesenbach was now in second overall, 170 points behind Johnson-Thomson. Vetter was third 247 points down and Mokhnyuk, 259 adrift, had slipped to fourth.
After the Javelin the only change was that Vetter had withdrawn from the competition and Germany’s Carolin Schaefer had moved into the bronze medal position.
Johnson-Thompson who had not thrown a javelin all season except in training, registered 36.61 for 602 points. She now had an unassailable lead of 195 going into the final event.