Speedster Upbeat Jamaica can Shatter 4x100m World Record

The day after I posted the article Jamaica 4×100m Relay Potential – A Sub 37 Second WR? came this article from www.jamaicaobserver.com

Speedster upbeat Jamaica can shatter 4X100m world record

Fresh on the heels of establishing the new 100 metres world record of 9.72secs on Saturday, Usain Bolt believes that Jamaica can better the 4×100 metres world record of 37.40 established by two separate American teams in 1992 and 1993.

“I think if we get more practise it should be close because we ran well last year (in Osaka) and I think if we get the baton around good and the guys come together we could break the world record,” Bolt said after being asked if he believed Jamaica, with the two fatsest men in history, can realistically smash the 15-year-old mark. Powell is now the second fastest man in history with 9.74 done in Rieti, Italy, last summer.

“The relay is a funny thing (because) you have to get the baton around,” Bolt noted. “Last year at the World Championships, we should have won, but we messed up the baton changes,” Bolt conceded.

The team of Marvin Anderson, Bolt, Nesta Carter and Powell – the then 100m record holder with 9.77 – posted a national record 37.89 secs for second behind the Tyson Gay-led American team, which won with a world leading 37.78.

Bolt’s thoughts of breaking the sprint relay world record comes less than a week after this newspaper quoted Powell as saying the record was a possibilty.

“The world record can go for sure with two guys running 9.7 and we (Jamaica) have other athletes out there capable of running sub-10, so we have a great chance of breaking the world record,” Powell said at the time.

The American team of Michael Marsh, Leroy Burrell, Dennis Mitchell and Carl Lewis combined to set the mark of 37.40 in Stuttgart, Germany on August 8, 1992, before Jon Drummond and Andre Cason joined Burrell and Mitchell one year later in Barcelona, Spain, to equal the mark.

All-Time Fastest 4x100m Relay Times

1 United States (Marsh, Burrell, Mitchell Lewis) – 37.40 08/05/92 Barcelona
1 United States (Drummond, Cason, Mitchell, Burrell) – 37.40 08/21/93 Stuttgart
3 United States (Drummond, Cason, Mitchell, Burrell) – 37.48 08/22/93 Stuttgart
4 United States (Cason, Burrell, Mitchell, Lewis) – 37.50 09/01/91 Tokyo
5 United States (Drummond, Montgomery, Lewis, Greene) – 37.59 08/29/99 Seville
5 United States (Conwright, Spearmon, Gay, Smoots) – 37.59 09/16/06 Athens
7 United States (Drummond, Williams, Lewis,Greene) – 37.61 09/30/00 Sydney
8 HSInternational (Drummond, Williams, Johnson, Greene) – 37.65 09/01/00 Berlin
9 United States (Marsh, Burrell, Mitchell, Lewis) – 37.69 08/07/91 Zürich
9 Canada (Esmie, Gilbert, Surin, Bailey) – 37.69 08/03/96 Atlanta