in the specific case of this championship, in Italy there were no big expectations, but still Stano and/or Fortunato in the men's 20km are at least a missing medal
Palmisano instead got an expected medal (despite all of her injuries, she's way better than any other active specialist and she's always asked to win, also when she's not at 100%)
on the other hand, Fabbri won an unexpected silver in the men's shot put (but Weir had troubles when he was expected to fight for the medals), meanwhile Iapichino is definitely the biggest disappointment so far...she should have won at least silver (and she was clearly expected way over 7 meters)
in the 1500m, we expected Arese to make the men's final (and nothing more, tbh) and he didn't, but we got Cavalli in the women's final, which is probably one of the biggest surprises of the championship so far
Osakue and Ihemeje are in their respective final, which was their initial target...we'll see how they go, but a top 8 placing would be already a great achievement
up to you to decide if this is beyond expectations, a fair balance or "underperforming"...