Paris 2024 Olympic Games: Team GB sprinters react to 4x100m relay heroics - 'We were screaming, emotion took over'
Updated 10/08/2024 at 10:24 GMT+1
The Team GB women's 4x100m relay team took silver on Friday night, surviving a downpour of rain at the Stade de France and poor baton handovers to take a spot on the podium. The men's quartet took bronze, making Team GB the only nation to win medals in both. The women's squad joined Eurosport to talk through all the emotions of their thrilling race.
'We were screaming, emotions took over' - GB 4x100m team reflect on grabbing superb silver
Video credit: TNT Sports
Team GB’s women’s 4x100m quartet survived the pouring Parisian rain and two poor baton handovers to take silver on Friday, their best result in the Olympic women’s relay event in 68 years.
There was, finally, a medal for Dina Asher-Smith and Daryll Neita after several near misses for British women in the sprint events at the Stade de France in Paris.
Asher-Smith, Neita, Imani-Lara Lansiquot and Amy Hunt finished 0.07 seconds behind the US team, with Sha’Carri Richardson blazing to the line as their final runner despite a surge from Neita.
The medal-winning foursome, with Bianca Williams and Desiree Henry in tow, joined the Eurosport sofa on Bonjour Paris to talk about the thrilling race.
"We were screaming, emotions took over," said Henry, who ran with the team in the heats but was not on the track for the final.
"It's just that realisation, you know, we're actually coming home with something – this is brilliant."
"I thought I was going to be sick. I was so nervous. I couldn't even sit still," said Williams, who also raced in the heats but watched on from the stands in the final.
"It was just so much emotion. There were tears, there was jumping up and down. Everyone was just so happy, it was fantastic."
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Watch as GB celebrate silver despite 'awful, awful' final changeover in dramatic 4x100m relay
Video credit: TNT Sports
After Asher-Smith burst out of the blocks with an immaculate start, Team GB were serious contenders for gold, only for the plan to unravel as a final baton change between Hunt and Neita cost them dearly.
"Honestly I blacked out," Hunt said.
Neita, who was blitzing down Richardson in the final sprint, added: "We practice so much as a team, we're so well drilled, we're an amazing team. When we race together it's all about love, passion, getting the baton around.
"It's a relay, chaos happens and things happen. But if we can correct ourselves in the moment and still cross that line and get on the podium, I think it's a success.
"Credit to the team yesterday, we did amazing, even in not the sunniest conditions. But we brought it home and that's what it's all about."
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The men's 4x100m team took home bronze, their first medal in that event since gold at Athens 2004.
Jeremiah Azu, Louie Hinchliffe, Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake and Zharnel Hughes finished third after the USA crashed out of the race with a disastrous handover and were disqualified.
It left Canada and South Africa to charge for gold and silver respectively, with Hughes roaring Team GB to bronze in the final leg.
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Watch 'dramatic sprint relay' as GB take bronze and Canada win gold after USA gaffe
Video credit: TNT Sports
"We were trackside and we had the best seats. It was incredible and we felt so proud to come together as a larger squad. It just shows the strength of depth that we have in UK sprinting right now," Hunt said proudly.
"We're the only nation to come away with two medals and that's insane."
A failed doping test from CJ Ujah saw Team GB's relay silver medal stripped from Tokyo – a team that Hughes was part of.
"It was just phenomenal to see the squad do so well," Asher-Smith said.
"The men have worked so hard and obviously like us continue to work so hard. As the only nation to get two medals it did feel great.
"We were hanging around for our picture, the money shot with both teams. They were trying, quite rightly, to get us to go the media zone and we were like, 'no no no. This is how we do it'."
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