RELAY WOMEN RAISE MEDAL HOPES
By David Martin, PA Sport, Sydney
Britain's 4x400m relay women raised hopes that they might snatch a medal in
Saturday's final after qualifying with a solid first round heat run in Stadium
Australia on Friday.
The squad of Helen Frost, Donna Fraser, Allison Curbishley and individual
bronze medallist Katharine Merry won in a time of three minutes 25.28 seconds.
Jamaica's quartet finished second in 3:25.65 with Russia having to wait to see
whether they would qualify as a fastest loser after clocking 3:26.05.
Defending champions USA, missing 100 and 200 metres gold medallist Marion
Jones, competing in the long jump strolled through the first heat.
Leading from the first changeover they won by a comfortable season's best
3:23.95 from the Cubans who ran 3:25.22 with Belarus third in 3:26.31.
Nigeria, runners-up in Atlanta, were also easy winners of the final heat
clocking 3:22.99 - the fastest time of the night.
Behind them Australia, even without individual gold medallist Cathy Freeman,
set an Oceanic record of 3:24.05 with the Czech Republic third in 3:24.40.
But the Irish team of Karen Shinkins, Martina McCarthy, Emily Maher and Ciara
Sheehy, despite smashing their national record by 0.32 seconds with a time of
3:32.24, only managed sixth place.
Merry, hoping to grab her second medal in Sydney after taking bronze in the
women's individual 400m race, said: "I was tired today.
"But I knew we wouldn't find a problem getting off on the relay - the girls
gave me such a good lead. We had an absolute cracking start."
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