The 4x100m quartet of Simone Facey, Kerron Stewart, Shelly-Ann Fraser and Aleen Bailey

4 x 100m WOMEN

Once again the Jamaican women proved their dominance in world sprinting taking the gold in the 4 x 100m relay at the Championships. The quartet of Simone Facey, Shelly-Ann Fraser, Aleen Bailey and Kerron Stewart earlier in the afternoon easily qualified for the finals in a time of 41.88 - beating the Bahamas. The same quartet entered the finals as the favourites, the USA having suffered an injury to Muna Lee in the semi-final heat. Simone Facey led off the Champion team handing over to 100m World Champion Shelly-Ann Fraser who ran a superb backstretch, putting Jamaica firmly in the lead. Aleen Bailey held her own and there was a good exchange between herself and Kerron Stewart. Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie of the Bahamas made a valiant attempt to catch the Kerron but had to settle for second place. Jamaica’s winning time – 42.06.

The Jamaican men’s 4 x 400m Team of Leford Green, Ricardo Chambers, Isa Phillips and Jermaine Gonzales were not able to qualify for the finals of the men’s 4 x 400m relay. They were never able to position themselves in the top three and finished a distant 5th in their qualifying heat.

The qualifying round for the Jamaican women was very competitive as Jamaica had Russia and Germany to contend with. Kaliese Spencer, Shereefa Lloyd, Rosemarie Whyte and Novelene Williams-Mills qualified for the finals in second place in a time of 3:24.72 just ahead of a fast finishing Germany. Jamaica has the second fastest time going in to the finals behind Russia and just ahead of Germany.

On a fairly cool evening, in a packed Berlin Olympic Stadium, Jamaica was able to seal their victory in the men’s sprint relay. At the start of the race Usain Bolt was shown on the video monitor hushing the crowd to silence for the beginning of the race. The crowd was indeed very quiet and immediately rising to their feet as the starting gun went off. There was never any doubt that the Jamaican team could win, it was a matter of them getting the baton safely around the track and they had been warned by Technical Leader, Donald Quarrie, to take no chances with the exchanges. In the end Steve Mullings, Michael Frater, Asafa Powell and Usain Bolt pleased fans in the stadium and all around the world in winning the gold and setting a new Championship Record and second best performance of all time of 37.31 ahead of Trinidad and Tobago (silver) and Great Britain (bronze).