Aug. 27, 2004
ATHENS, Greece - Baylor senior Darold Williamson (San Antonio, Texas) ran the anchor leg as the United States' 4x400-meter relay team posted the fastest qualifying time of 2:59.30 in the semifinals at the Olympic Games Friday at Olympic Stadium. Kelly Willie ran leadoff, followed by Derrick Brew and Andrew Rock as Team USA coasted to victory by more than two seconds over second-place Nigeria and third-place Bahamas. Baylor junior Jeremy Wariner (Grand Prairie, Texas), the gold medalist in the 400 meters, will likely run the third leg in the finals to hand off to his teammate Williamson for the anchor. Led by Wariner and Williamson, Baylor won the national title and set the NCAA indoor record in the relay at 3:03.96 this year, the first relay in history to break 3:04 indoors. The duo then led the Bears to a repeat at the NCAA outdoor meet with a time of 3:01.03. It is not certain both will run, since Team USA has a pool of six runners from which to choose four athletes. The final is scheduled for 2:25 p.m. CDT Saturday. The 4x400 relay will not be shown live, but can be seen between 9 and 10:30 p.m. CDT on NBC.
OLYMPIC 4x400 METER RELAY FINAL QUALIFIERSHEAT 2USA Kelly Willie 2:59.30 Derrick Brew Andrew Rock Darold Williamson
Nigeria James Godday 3:01.60 Musa Audu Saul Weigopwa Enefiok Udo Obong
Bahamas Andrae Williams 3:01.74 Dennis Darling Nathaniel McKinney Christopher Brown
HEAT 1England Timothey Benjamin 3:02.40 Sean Baldock Malachi Davis Matthew Elias
Japan Yuki Yamaguchi 3:02.71 Jun Osakada Tomohiro Itoh Mitsuhiro Sato
Germany Ingo Schultz 3:02.77 Kamghe Gaba Ruwen Faller Bastian Swillims
Australia John Steffensen 3:03.06 Clinton Hill Patrick Dwyer Mark Ormrod
Botswana Oganeditse Moseki 3:03.32 Johnson Kubisa Calfornia Molefe Kagiso Kilego
