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Team VI 7th in World B Final
The event which attracted some of the best athletes in the world had begun badly for the VI with the news that Tahesia Harrigan-Scott had pulled out with a leg injury (apparently she will be fit again in time for the June 7th Twilight Invitational), leaving the team with just one 100m specialist, Nelda Huggins.
Action got underway in Heat 2 for the girls with a time of 44.53 seconds to come home 7th behind the likes of Jamaica, Nigeria and Brazil, all of whom automatically qualified for the main Final.
Overall the team finished 15th out of the 18 teams taking part with Venezuela, Australia and Japan being slower.
In the B Final and running in lane 1, the team ran 45.06 to come 7th behind the winners Canada (43.33), the Bahamas (43.46), Switzerland, Puerto Rico, China and Poland.
In the main Final the USA romped to first place with a blazing second bend by Jeneba Tarmoh and a winning time of 41.88.The victory put the US women, who set the world record of 40.82 in the 2012 Olympic final, back on top of the global rankings for the sprint relay after taking silver behind rivals Jamaica at last year's IAAF World Championships.
Tianna Bartoletta and Alexandria Anderson set the race up, staying even with the Jamaican lead-off pair of Carrie Russell and Kerron Stewart.
Bartoletta even had the slowest reaction time of the eight finalists but, in the end, it didn't matter as Tarmoh scorched past Schillonie Calvert on the turn before passing the baton to LaKeisha Lawson and the US anchor had a free flight down the homestretch, even as Jamaica's Samantha Henry-Robinson tried in vain to close the gap.
Neither USA nor Jamaica had their top talent available, as Jamaica's winning anchor runner from Moscow 2013 and last year’s IAAF World Athlete of The Year, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, though entered, did not run, and many of the top US women stayed home.
Jamaica held on to second in 42.28; third place went to Trinidad and Tobago, with Kamaria Durant, Michelle-Lee Ahye, Reyare Thomas and Kai Selvon bringing the baton around in 42.66, the latter overtaking Nigeria just a few metres from the line to grab third place by 0.01.
Hosts the Bahamas finished third in 43.54 but just missed out on a place in the main final with the two fastest non-automatic qualifier spots going to Germany and Brazil, the third-placed teams in the first two heats.
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