Britain's hopes of striking gold in the men's sprint relay were left in tatters today as they crashed out in the first round.

The quartet of Allyn Condon, Jason Gardener, Marlon Devonish and Dwain Chambers finished last in their heat in the Olympic Stadium.

They were then disqualified for an illegal baton change.

The squad had high hopes of winning the 4x100m relay title after finishing second in last year's World Championships.

But they never recovered from a poor first change between Condon, who would not have run in the final, and Gardener.

Condon was in the squad for Darren Campbell, Britain's regular lead-off man, who had won the silver in yesterday's 200 metres final.

Chambers said: "What can I say man, it's all over. I came here hoping to pick up a medal because I did not get one in the 100m and I am a bit gutted.

"I do not know what happened. I knew from the first change over that we had blown it. I knew from then, forget it."

Chambers, who ran out of his box as his change over was also messed up, added: "I had to stop and go back. Marlon could not catch me, what else can I say."

Britain's head coach of athletics, Max Jones, said: ``They are devastated - absolutely.

``They've worked as a team of six or seven, attended relay practices, done well at previous championships, brought medals home and we assumed that we'd get in the final and get a medal and maybe on the day beat the Americans.

``But it just wasn't to be. That's relays.''

The failure to advance is an unexpected twist for Britain's men who have re-established themselves as a force in world sprinting during these Games.

Chambers and Campbell had both run in the 100m final, while Christian Malcolm had finished fifth in the 200m final behind silver medallist Campbell.

``It could have been the icing on the cake, we've had a great Games so far and the 4x100 was one of our medal bankers really,'' Jones said.

``But you've got to get through the rounds to get in the final to have a chance of a medal and unfortunately we didn't make it.

``We tried to make it safety first, which the Americans have just done and done it splendidly. But obviously it didn't work.''

Jones refused to point the finger of blame at any of the runners.

``It's the first time in three years we haven't got the baton round,'' he said.

``It was a faulty hand-change by the look of it, but there's a lot of pressure out there - there's 100,000 people in the stadium and the team outside was running well.

``I think they got to the point where they could have changed nice and cleanly after a splendid start and we'd have just romped round. But we just missed a hand and I couldn't really say whose fault it was, there's two runners there.

``I don't want to apportion blame, because they've practised and practised and it just didn't go right on the day.

``We do practice a lot of scenarios, you go through all the permutations because people get hamstring pulls or whatever and you don't usually end up with the final four you start off with.

``All through the years we've practised one-to-two, and two-to-three and whatever, so they'd be familiar with that particular change over.

``It just didn't go right on the day. We practised safety first and it just didn't work.''

Favourites America, with 100m champion Maurice Greene running the anchor leg, had no such problems as they breezed through with victory in their heat in 38.15secs.

But there was disappointment for Ireland's quartet of John McAdorey, Gary Ryan, Tom Comyns and Paul Brizzell.

The foursome clocked a national record of 39.26 secs but missed out on a semi-final place as a fastest loser even though they had the same time as the Canadians because they finished one place further back in the heat.