Don Quarrie hails 'fantastic' sprinters

LONDON, England:

Assessing yesterday's penultimate day of Jamaica's involvement at the Olympic Games, athletics technical manager Donald Quarrie hailed the team's performances, and reserved special praise for the silver medal-winning women's 4x100m relay team.

Quarrie is also looking forward to wrapping up the Olympics in style later today with the women's 4x400m and men's 4x100m relay team both expected to impress.

Despite complaining of back pain during his 200m victory on Thursday, Quarrie also confirmed that Usain Bolt will be ready for the sprint relay final, where he is expecting a special performance.

Yesterday, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Sherone Simpson, Veronica Campbell-Brown and Kerron Stewart set a new national record of 41.41 seconds to finish behind the USA, who won in a world record 40.82 with Ukraine finishing third in 42.04, also a national record.

"They were fantastic, it was a fantastic race overall, our women did great and ran a fantastic time the USA team was just better on the night," said Quarrie, who was also happy to see the record go. "40.8 was overdue, the record was so old, I'm happy it was broken."

Quarrie, was also pleased with the national record being lowered and shared that the members of the team has asked for more opportunities to run together, something that will be worked on.

"The national record is something to be very proud of, we broke it and right after the race I went inside to see the ladies and the first thing they said was that we need to run more relays, so already they are excited and they know that they can get to that point as well," Quarrie noted before turning his attention to the men's 4x100m, confirming Bolt's participation and analysing the team's run in the heats.

A team of Nesta Carter, Michael Frater, Yohan Blake and Kemar Bailey-Cole posted 37.39 to win their heat and line up what should be a fiery clash against the USA in today's final. Quarrie is also expecting both teams to go below the 37.04 world record, held by Jamaica.

Confident

"Bolt is fine and ready to run and we are confident that we are going to win," Quarrie said.

"In the heat we were good, it was not the greatest but we played it safe," he said. "Tomorrow (today), we are going to have to run. The US team will be putting in (Tyson) Gay and (Ryan) Bailey, both teams I think will break the world record, but we have Bolt."

The Jamaicans also qualified for the women's 4x400m relay final after the team of Christine Day, Shereefa Lloyd, Shericka Williams and Rosemarie Whyte won their heat in 3:25.13. Lloyd will be replaced by national champion and 400m finalist Novlene Williams-Mills for the finals, as confirmed by Quarrie.

"Shereefa Lloyd will be replaced by Novlene (Williams-Mills) for the final," said Quarrie. "There are four good teams, three medals, we are going for one of them."

- A.L.