Ghana’s women’s 4x100m relay team have qualified for the finals of the 4x100m relays at the IAAF World Relay Championships in Yokohama, Japan.
The quartet qualified in 2nd place (44.12s) in a chaotic Heat 2 in which Great Britain and France dropped their batons and did not finish their races; while Canada were disqualified. Nigeria also encountered baton change problems before recovering to finish in a disappointing 4th place and miss out on a place in the finals.
Ghana will now qualify for the World Athletics Championships irrespective of their position in the final. They just need to avoid disqualification in the race to qualify.
Running in Lane 5, Flings Owusu-Agyapong started Ghana off on the first leg and handed over Gemma Acheampong on the second leg.
Persis William-Mensah ran a strong 3rd leg to hold off the challenge from Great Britain but she still handed off to Hor Halutie in 5th position on the anchor leg with the likes of Denmark, France, Great Britain and Canada all ahead of Ghana.
While the change over for Ghana was smooth, Britain and France dropped theirs in the final change over and Nigeria struggled with their handover. That allowed Hor to slip through and finish in 3rd with a time of 44.12s, behind Denmark (1st) and Canada (2nd).
Canada were then disqualified and Ghana moved into 2nd position and a place the final.
Overall, Ghana qualified the slowest, and will now come up against USA, Germany, Brazil, Jamaica, Australia, Italy and Denmark in tomorrow’s final.
