Heartbreak for Team GB men after losing out on Olympic gold in 4x100m relay by 0.01 SECONDS – as women bag bronze

TEAM GB men missed out on 4x100m relay gold by just 0.01 SECONDS in Tokyo.

The British foursome of CJ Ujah, Zharnel Hughes, Richard Kilty and Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake won silver in their respective final but were pipped by Italy in the closing strides.

Reuters

Team GB men missed out on Olympic gold in 4x100m relay[/caption]

Getty

They missed out to Italy by just 0.01 seconds in an agonisingly close race[/caption]

AFP

Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake, Richard Kilty, Chijindu Ujah and Zharnel Hughes had to settle for silver[/caption]

PA

Dina Asher-Smith, Imani-Lara Lansiquot, Daryll Neita, and Asha Philip celebrate bronze in the Women’s 4 x 100m Relay Final[/caption]

Italy, who had the recently-crowned 100m champion Marcell Jacobs in their ranks, came first in 37.50 seconds.

Canada were third in 37.70 seconds.

But Dina Asher-Smith ensured she would not leave Tokyo empty-handed after relay redemption on the track – but there were no major celebrations on the track.

Britain’s fastest woman was left distraught as she failed to make the 100m final last Saturday and then revealed in a tear-jerking TV interview the injury issues she has faced over the past six weeks.

Asher-Smith, who did not run in the 200m this week, could have left these Games with nothing but regrets and tears to show for her efforts.

But the Londoner, alongside Asha Philip, Imani-Lara Lansiquot and Daryll Neita, won bronze in the 4x100m relay final — a second successive Olympic medal in the sprint relays for Team GB.

They came third in a time of 41.88 seconds behind champions Jamaica (a national record of 41.02 seconds) and silver medallists from the United States (a season’s best of 41.45 seconds).

Yet it was clear from their initial body language that they could have done so much better and perhaps run even quicker.

The quartet had set a national record of 41.55 seconds in the heats and that had given them massive hope of potentially going for gold this evening.

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But four poorly-timed baton changes proved their undoing, especially as last-leg runner Neita was in fifth place coming down the 100m.

Neita, who broke 11 seconds for the first time in the 100m heats, did well to move into third place, overtaking the Dutch and Swiss runners, but she had too much ground to make up.

Jamaica took the gold in the 4x100m relays for the first time since Athens 2004 and broke the monopoly set by the United States.

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