Athletics_at_the_2012_Summer_Olympics_–_Women's_4_×_400_metres_relay

Athletics at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Women's 4 × 400 metres relay

Athletics at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Women's 4 × 400 metres relay

Add article description

Quick Facts Women's 4 × 400 metres relay at the Games of the XXX Olympiad, Venue ...
Official Video

The women's 4 × 400 metres relay competition at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, United Kingdom was held at the Olympic Stadium on 10–11 August.[1]

Summary

From the gun USA, Russia and Jamaica were the teams to watch in this final, entering as the reigning gold, silver and bronze medallists respectively from the previous Olympic Games.

From the start Yulia Gushchina of Russia – in lane 5 – went out hard making up the stagger on Christine Day of Jamaica in lane 6. Outside them in lane 7, for the Americans DeeDee Trotter was out conservatively slowly making up ground on Phara Anacharsis of France to her immediate outside.

In the last stages of the opening legs, Trotter for the USA came first into the home straight, pulling away from the entire field. Several metres back Yulia was in second place, Day coming back at her, in bid to win over the silver-medal position. Ukraine was fourth and Great Britain fifth coming in for the first handoffs.

DeeDee handed off first to Allyson Felix – the newly crowned 200-metre champion – who was out flying in a league of her own, widely extending the lead for the USA. Further back Antonina Krivoshapka was going on strong for the Russians, four metres behind her Rosemarie Whyte was in the bronze medal position for Jamaica. Several metres back, Ukraine's Olha Zemlyak was fighting to get back in contention for the bronze medal. 18 metres ahead of the field Felix handed over to Francena McCorory dropping a staggering 48.20s lap, the fastest time since her own time of 48.01s from half a decade ago, at the 2007 World Championships in Osaka.

Miles out in front, the USA were a different class – clearly in their own league – continuing to set the tone for the rest of the pack. The whole field was spread out, Tatyana Firova was in second-place position and Shericka Williams in third for Russia and Jamaica respectively. Ukraine was in fourth place and Great Britain fifth. Nigeria, France and the Czech Republic followed in that order.

Anchoring for the Americans Sanya Richards-Ross dropped a 49.10s leg, the second fastest of the race, giving USA a stress-free victory in the time of 3.16:87, with a 30-metre gap (It was almost 3+1⁄2 seconds at the finish). Russia was clearly second ahead of Jamaica and Ukraine, each team keeping the same positions from the first handoffs. Nigeria was later disqualified for lane infringement.[2]

The same three countries, USA, Russia and Jamaica, finished in identical places in 2004, 2008 and 2012. Sanya Richards (Ross) for the US, Tatyana Firova for Russia and Novlene Williams (Mills) for Jamaica have been on all three teams.

A 2016 positive doping retest of Firova's sample from the 2008 Olympic relay resulted in the disqualification of Russia's 2008 team,[3] but did not initially affect the 2012 team on which she had also run. On 1 February 2017, Antonina Krivoshapka's 2012 sample came back positive for dehydrochlormethyltestosterone (turinabol). The entire Russian team was thus retrospectively disqualified,[4] and their silver medals reassigned to Jamaica, with Ukraine promoted to bronze.[5] Krivoshapka's three 2012 teammates were later given retrospective bans for doping violations covering periods including the 2012 final: Yulia Gushchina later in 2017,[6] then Firova in February 2019,[7] and finally Antyukh on 24 October 2022.[8]

Records

Prior to the competition, the existing World and Olympic records were as follows.

More information Broken records during the 2012 Summer Olympics ...

Schedule

All times are British Summer Time (UTC+1)

More information Date, Time ...
  • Q denotes automatic qualification (based on place).
  • q denotes provisional qualification (fastest non-automatic qualifiers).
  • DNS denotes did not start.
  • DNF denotes did not finish.
  • DQ denotes disqualified
  • AR denotes area record.
  • NR denotes national record.
  • PB denotes personal best.
  • SB denotes season's best.

Results

Round 1

Qual. rule: first 3 of each heat (Q) plus the 2 fastest times (q) qualified.

Heat 1

More information Rank, Lane ...

Heat 2

More information Rank, Lane ...

Final

More information Rank, Lane ...

[10]

  • Nigeria originally finished in seventh place in the final but were disqualified due to a lane infringement.

References

  1. [1]
    "Athletics at the 2012 Summer Olympics". Archived from the original on 5 September 2012. Retrieved 11 May 2012.
  2. [2]
    "Highlights: U.S. Women Dominate 4 × 400 m, Win Gold – Track & Field Video | NBC Olympics". www.nbcolympics.com. Archived from the original on 13 August 2012.
  3. [3]
    "IOC sanctions six athletes for failing anti-doping tests at Beijing 2008". olympic.org. 31 August 2016. Retrieved 31 August 2016.
  4. [4]
    "IOC sanctions three athletes for failing anti-doping test at London 2012". International Olympic Committee. 31 May 2017. Retrieved 30 November 2017.
  5. [5]
    "London 2012 4x400m relay women - Olympic Athletics". International Olympic Committee. 3 June 2017. Retrieved 30 November 2017.
  6. [6]
    "More Russian track athletes banned for doping at London Olympics". CBC Sports. Retrieved 30 November 2017.
  7. [7]
    "Doping bans for 12 Russian athletes including 2012 Olympic champion Ivan Ukhov". BBC Sport. Retrieved 1 February 2019.
  8. [8]
    "Lashinda Demus in line for 2012 Olympics gold after Russian DQ'd". ESPN. 24 October 2022. Retrieved 30 October 2022.
  9. [9]
    Lane infringement
  10. [10]
    "Women's 4 × 400 m Relay". London 2012. Archived from the original on 9 December 2012. Retrieved 10 August 2012.
Share this article:

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Athletics_at_the_2012_Summer_Olympics_–_Women's_4_×_400_metres_relay, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.