AP
Jamaica's 4x400-metre relay team after winning the bronze medal yesterday.

Elton Tucker, Assistant Sport Editor

BEIJING:

IT ALL ended on an inauspicious note. The Jamaican men's 4x400 metres quartet finished at the back of the field in the final.

No one, however, can deny that Beijing 2008 was a great Olympic Games for Jamaica. The statistics are there to show.

In the first of only two finals on the last day of competition for Jamaica at the Bird's Nest stadium in Beijing, the women's 4x400 metres team ran well throughout to earn bronze medals.

Jamaica ended third in the track and field medals table with six gold, three silver and two bronze and 11 medals overall. This was topped by only the United States with 23 medals (7-9-7) and Russia with 18 (6-5-7).

On the full medals table, Jamaica were 13th among the 70 countries to have earned medals. Hosts China are ahead on this table with one day to go. They have 49 gold, 19 silver and 28 bronze. The United States are first in total medals, 106, but they have just 33 gold.

In the 4x400m women's final, individual silver medallist Shericka Williams (50.88) handed over the baton in second spot on the opening leg, just behind Russia's Yulia Gushina (50.62) but American Allyson Felix (48.55) and Liudmila Litvinova of Russia (49.18) surged ahead despite a good 49.32 second leg by Shereefa Lloyd.

Lloyd's leg was by far the fastest for the Jamaican women. Novlene Williams-Mills had a split of 49.86 while national champion Rosemarie Whyte's 400m third-leg split was 50.34. Whyte had replaced Bobby Gaye Wilkins who ran in the semi-finals.

Excellent final leg

A splendid final leg by Jamaican-born Sanya Richards ensured the gold for the US in a season best 3:8.54 with Russia second in 3:18.82.

Jamaica had hoped to use 400m hurdles gold medallist Melaine Walker for the final but this plan, for reasons unclear, was abandoned at the last minute. It is unlikely that Walker's presence would have changed the colour of the medal.

Williams-Mills was happy for the medal following a disappointing 400m earlier in the week.

"We feel very good," Williams-Mills said. "A lot of people were not expecting us to get that many medals but we came out here and showed that we are a great country and we have great athletes and it was time for us to shine." The bronze was Williams-Mills' second Olympic relay medal following a third-place spot in Athens four years ago.

The men finished last in their final despite two 44-second legs by Ricardo Chambers (44.47) and Sanjay Ayre (44.86). Former national champion Lansford Spence, who replaced an unlucky Allodin Fothergill from Friday's semi-finals, clocked a pedestrian 46.52 on the final leg.

Gave it their all

Ayre said they gave it all they had from lane nine.

"Blackwood gave us a good start and handed over in the top four, Ricardo did a good job and kept us in fourth spot and when I got it I just tried to catch up and ran out of room. Then Lansford tried to catch up the first 200m and after that the race was pretty much done."

The Americans, led by 400 silver medallist Jeremy Wariner with a 43.18 split on the final leg, won gold in an Olympic record 2:55.39, beating the 2:55.74 another American quartet set in Barcelona in 1992. The team in running order was 400m winner LaShawn Merritt, 400m hurdles gold medallist Angelo Taylor, David Neville and Wariner. The Bahamas were second in 2:58.03 and Russia third in a national record 2:58.06.