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]
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