RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — The women’s 4x100m semi finals was hotly contested in Rio de Janeiro this morning (Aug 18) inside Rio 2016 Olympic Stadium. There were two semis each with one Caribbean team.
In heat one, the Jamaican team represented by Sashalee Forbes, Simone Facey, Veronica Campbell -Brown and bronze medallist in the 100m, Shelly- Ann Fraser- Pryce placed first to qualify with a time of 41.79 sec.
Former two time Olympic champion over 200m, Veronica Campbell- Brown ran an impressive curve on the 3rd leg to hand over first to Fraser- Pryce. They finished ahead of the Great Britain team, who placed second in a time of 41.93 sec. Also automatically qualifying are the Ukrainians in a time of 42.29 sec
Campbell-Brown commented on the first round: “We are putting things together well but we’ll have to change a few things for the final. There will be some changes that you will see tomorrow, Elaine (Thompson) will definitely be on.”
The Netherlands team featuring silver medallist in the 200m, Dafne Schippers messed up the baton exchange on the second leg which hampered their ability to finish the race. Schippers will be immensely disappointed after also missing out on a gold medal in last night’s 200m to Elaine Thompson of Jamaica.
The two fastest losers also came from Heat one. Canada (42.70 sec) and China (42.70 sec) made it through to the final tomorrow night (Friday).
In the second heat, the race favourite and record holders, USA, also messed up their baton exchange on the 2nd to 3rd leg when Allyson Felix experienced technical problems during her exchange to English Gardner. In a desperate bid, the baton was thrown to the outgoing Gardner, but still did not make contact with her palm. The team still completed their race in 1:06:71 sec to place eighth.
The Trinidadian team of Semoy Hackett, Michelle-Lee Ahye, Kelly-Ann Baptiste and Khalifa ST Fort clocked a time of 42.62 secs to finish third behind the Germans (42.18 secs) and the Nigerians (42.55 secs) to make the top three automatic qualifiers.