LONDON – Usain Bolt anchored Jamaica into the final of the men’s 4x100m event on Saturday’s penultimate day of London 2017 World Championships.
Jamaica’s quartet of Tyquendo Tracey, Julian Forte, Michael Campbell and Bolt topped heat 2 in 37.95, the team’s fastest time this season. France also did a season best of 38.03 to take second behind Jamaica while heat 1 winner, USA ran a world leading 37.70s to book their ticket.
Bolt said the execution wasn’t perfect, but added, “Still there were some mistakes. Yohan Blake coming in for the final is definitely good.”
“The young runners in our team — it is just about executing and coming through the race for them,” he added.
Tracey, Forte and Campbell are at their first World Championships.
“I really just wanted to get the baton round,” said Forte. The final is set for later today at 3:30pm Jamaica time.
In the women’s 400m relay, Christania Williams, Natasha Morrison, Jura Levy and Shashalee Forbes qualified in second place, 42.50 behind Germany 42.34.
Forbes commented: “We know we can do better but we have got the team into the final. We will have two other athletes coming in for the final: Simone Facey and Elaine Thompson.”
USA with a 41.84 world leading run to beat Great Britain, 41.93 are the top teams heading into tonight’s final.
Ariana Washington, a member of team USA, said: “The aim is gold. Hopefully, we have a lot more in the tank. We’re ready and we have some great competitors in the back ready to come out here and produce.”
Jamaica also advanced to the final of the women’s 4x400m. The team of Anastasia Le-Roy, Anneisha Mclaughlin-Whilby, Chrisann Gordon and Stephenie Ann McPherson, running in that order, ran a season best of 3:23.64 to finish ahead of Nigeria, 3:25.40 in heat 2.
McLaughlin-Whilby said the run was “pretty comfortable”
“We just wanted to do enough to qualify safely, so we are happy to have done that.
Gordon added: “We led it the whole way, so we are a strong challenger for the gold medal. We can go even harder. We work well together and never give up.”
The men’s 4x400m team, however, crashed out after crossing the line in 3:01.98, behind heat 1 winner Spain, 3:01.72
Peter Matthews, Steven Gayle, Jamari Rose and Rusheen McDonald made up the team.
