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."