JCCM Jane Cowmeadow Communications and Management

Nicola Sanders Anchors Women’s 4x400m Relay

Aug 24, 03:45 PM

In the women’s 4×400m final there was a shuffle in the running order, and the squad of Lee McConnell, Christine Ohuruogu, Victoria Barr and Nicola Sanders hoped to improve on their qualification as fastest losers from Saturday’s heats.

McConnell on the long stagger of the first leg faded slightly toward the end and although 400m finalist Ohuruogu took over the baton there was already a lot of ground to make up on the USA, Jamaica and Russia.

Ohuruogu passed on to Barr, who held the Brits in fourth position, and then came Sanders with her traditional final leg flurry. Although at this point there was no chance of Sanders making up the thirty-odd metres between GB & NI and the medal positions, she still ate up the ground on the home straight and finished strongly for fourth with 3:25.16.

Anchor woman Sanders said: “We did our best, we couldn’t have run faster than that, we ran a season’s best. It was such a weird leg, I was in no man’s land a bit. I knew they weren’t going to catch up with me, it just felt like I went through the motions to finish. At one point I thought, I’m catching them and then I was like ‘they are the three medalists’ and I’ve got 50m to go, it wasn’t really going to happen.”