Lewis-Francis: We can emulate Athens achievements

Olympic champion Mark Lewis-Francis insists Great Britain’s 4x100 metre relay team at the World Championships in Osaka has the individual potential to be better than the one that stormed to gold in Athens three years ago.

Lewis-Francis and Marlon Devonish, who were part of the 2004 Olympic gold medal-winning team alongside Jason Gardener and Darren Campbell, are joined in Osaka by Christian Malcolm, Craig Pickering, Tyrone Edgar and 19-year-old European Juniors 200m champion Alex Nelson.

Great Britain landed bronze at the last World Championships in Helsinki two years ago and will look to kickstart their campaign this time around in today’s heat to secure a place in tomorrow’s final.

“We have got every medal apart from this one. It is going to be a challenge for the relay team as a whole, but as a whole we have got one of the best relay teams we have put out as individual runners go in Craig, myself and Marlon and the first leg with Tyrone and Christian,” said Lewis-Francis.

“We now have Alex Nelson coming through and if he runs the bend like he did at the AAA’s we will have a good team out there. We can also mix it around; we are not stuck with four guys.

“We know we have the ability to do that because we do a lot of relay practice and if it goes well in training it can go well in the competition. It’s more about confidence.”

Preparations for the Championships did not go according to plan for the Great Britain team at the Norwich Union London Grand Prix earlier this month as a dropped baton in the exchange between Devonish and Pickering ended any hopes of a medal.

But buoyed by a strong showing from 100m finalist Devonish and semi-finalists Pickering and Lewis-Francis in the individual event earlier this week, the Great Britain team are confident they can challenge favourites USA, who will look for inspiration from sprint double champion Tyson Gay.

“We have always been up there in the medals, whatever four you put in we are always going to be up there alongside the Jamaicans, the Americans, the French and the Germans, so it’s always going to be close,” said Malcolm.

“We made mistakes in Helsinki and we got a bronze, if we get it right like we did in Athens we can win gold. In the relay it is always about the baton change not necessarily the speed.”

Team USA failed to qualify for the final in Helsinki after dropping the baton at the first change in their qualification heat and Devonish insists the Great Britain team will hold a crucial advantage over the Americans in this department despite the error in London.

“This year we have put a lot of time into the relay, we have been doing a lot of work on the changeovers, more than we have ever done in the past. It’s gone as well as it has been, we have had a few glitches when we have tried certain things,” said Devonish.

“We have a past record of success and there is a little bit of pressure on us and if we exchange the baton swiftly we can mix it with the best in the world so we know that and that is what we plan to do.

“The baton change is definitely our strong point. If you look at the Americans there are so many sprinters that can get in the relay team.

“It changes from year to year and people have to learn other peoples’ baton skills over and over again so it’s not as well drilled as ourselves.

“We live on a small island so there are not as many of us. We are working with the same sprinters which helps our changeovers which I think we are superior at compared to a lot of the other teams – it has helped us in the past.”