| Men 4x100m Relay Olympic Games Athens 2004 - Saturday 28.08 |
| Final 21:45 | Time | L | Ath.1 | Ath.2 | Ath.3 | Ath.4 | | 1. Great Britain | 38.07s | 3 | Jason Gardener | Darren Campbell | Marlon Devonish | Mark Lewis-Francis | | 2. United States | 38.08s | 5 | Shawn Crawford | Justin Gatlin | Coby Miller | Maurice Greene | | 3. Nigeria | 38.23s | 4 | Olusoji Fasuba | Uchenna Emedolu | Aaron Egbele | Deji Aliu | | 4. Japan | 38.49s | 7 | Hiroyasu Tsuchie | Shingo Suetsugu | Shinji Takahira | Nobuharu Asahara | | 5. Poland | 38.54s | 6 | Zbigniew Tulin | Lukasz Chyla | Marcin Jedrusinski | Marcin Urbas | | 6. Australia | 38.56s | 1 | Adam Basil | Paul di Bella | Patrick Johnson | Joshua Ross | | 7. Trinidad and Tobago | 38.60s | 8 | Nicconnor Alexander | Marc Burns | Ato Boldon | Darrel Brown | | 8. Brazil | 38.67s | 2 | Claudio Roberto Souza | Edson Luciano Ribeiro | Andre Domingos | Vicente de Lima |
The event became simplified under a ruling that only the top 16 seeded
teams would be eligible to compete, thereby restricting the event to two
rounds. Nigeria won the first heat in 38.27, whilst Germany – second
fastest team prior to the Games with 38.30 – ran 38.64 and were elim-
inated in sixth place. The USA won the other heat easily in 38.02, a full
five metres ahead of Britain (38.53).
The USA was ahead on the first leg of the final when Crawford had
to slow to get the baton to Gatlin, enabling Campbell and Emedolu to
catch up. Gatlin then gained more than a metre on the opposition, but
Miller started out early and had to slow drastically to get the baton.
Gatlin later noted that things were made worse when “I stepped on the
back of his (Miller’s) shoe”. The experienced duo of Campbell and
Devonish fared much better, and Britain took a lead of 2m at the last
exchange when both the Nigerian and American anchors looked back
before receipt, but Lewis-Francis did not. Greene closed on Lewis-
Francis, but the Briton was just able to hold off the American in the
closest finish in the event’s history. Nigeria finished well clear of Japan
for the bronze.
| Heat 1 20:10 | Time | L | Ath.1 | Ath.2 | Ath.3 | Ath.4 | | 1. Nigeria | 38.27s | 2 | Olusoji Fasuba | Uchenna Emedolu | Aaron Egbele | Deji Aliu | | 2. Poland | 38.47s | 1 | Zbigniew Tulin | Lukasz Chyla | Marcin Jedrusinski | Marcin Urbas | | 3. Australia | 38.49s | 7 | Adam Basil | Paul di Bella | Patrick Johnson | Joshua Ross | | 4. Trinidad and Tobago | 38.53s | 3 | Nicconnor Alexander | Marc Burns | Ato Boldon | Darrel Brown | | 5. Japan | 38.53s | 4 | Hiroyasu Tsuchie | Shingo Suetsugu | Shinji Takahira | Nobuharu Asahara | | 6. Germany | 38.64s | 5 | Ronny Ostwald | Tobias Unger | Alexander Kosenkow | Till Helmke | | 7. Canada | 38.64s | 8 | Nicolas Macrozonaris | Anson Henry | Charles Allen | Pierre Browne | | 8. Russia | 39.19s | 6 | Aleksandr Ryabov | Oleg Sergeyev | Sergey Bychkov | Andrey Yepishin |
| Heat 2 20:19 | Time | L | Ath.1 | Ath.2 | Ath.3 | Ath.4 | | 1. United States | 38.02s | 6 | Shawn Crawford | Darvis Patton | Coby Miller | Maurice Greene | | 2. Great Britain | 38.53s | 1 | Jason Gardener | Darren Campbell | Marlon Devonish | Mark Lewis-Francis | | 3. Brazil | 38.64s | 8 | Claudio Roberto Souza | Edson Luciano Ribeiro | Andre Domingos | Vicente de Lima | | 4. Jamaica | 38.71s | 2 | Dwight Thomas | Patrick Jarrett | Winston Smith | Michael Frater | | 5. Italy | 38.79s | 5 | Marco Torrieri | Simone Collio | Massimiliano Donati | Maurizio Checcucci | | 6. Ghana | 38.88s | 7 | Christian Nsiah | Tanko Braimah | Aziz Zakari | Leonard Myles-Mills | | 7. France | 38.93s | 4 | Issa Aime Nthepe | Ronald Pognon | Frederic Krantz | David Alerte | | -. Netherlands | DNF | 3 | Timothy Beck | Troy Douglas | Patrick van Balkom | Caimin Douglas |
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