SCOTS seem certain to comprise half of the Great Britain 4x400 metres relay squad which will chase a medal tonight in the final session of the European Championships in Helsinki.
The GB quartet which cruised to an automatic place in the final by finishing second behind France in last night's semis were led off by Fifer Eilidh Child, already guaranteed her Olympic hurdles place. Lee McConnell, rested last night, seems certain to come in for the final.
Child boosted her Olympic relay aspirations by handing over in first place and the GB quartet's time of 3:29.96 was third-fastest of the qualifiers.
The addition of Glasgow's McConnell for the final will improve that significantly. McConnell finished fifth in the 400m final on Friday evening, but ran a season's best of 51.98 in the opening round of the individual event.
However, it was not good news for Britain's women's 4x100 metres relay team who were disqualified from the European Championships yesterday and will miss out on taking part in the London Olympics after they were overtaken in the world rankings.
UK Athletics head coach Charles van Commenee, who had previously branded the women's relay squad a "disgrace", said the failure was an accident waiting to happen.
Only the top 16 nations in the world qualify and Britain arrived in Helsinki ranked 15th, needing a good performance in the semi-finals or final to hold off Poland and Switzerland.
However, Poland ran 43.13 secs to reach the final and Switzerland recorded a national record of 43.51secs to overtake Britain in the rankings, with Anyika Onuora, Montell Douglas, Hayley Jones and Ashleigh Nelson then disqualified after finishing second to Germany in their semi-final.
Jones was the guilty party, stepping outside her lane on the third leg around the bend. That meant Britain dropped to 17th in the rankings with an average time of 43.675 – rounded up to 43.68 by the IAAF – with Switzerland reducing their average to 43.66.
"It was always an accident waiting to happen," Van Commenee said, adding: "We have been under-performing in this area for more than 10 years and at one point you don't get away with it. I'm not really surprised, that's why I stopped the programme basically two years ago -"
In contrast, the men's team – Christian Malcolm, Dwain Chambers, James Ellington and Mark Lewis-Francis – qualified fastest for their final with a time of 38.98 secs.
William Sharman and Gianni Frankis advanced to the semi-finals of the 110m hurdles as Richard Alleyne missed out, while Jade Nicholls (51.75m) failed to make the women's discus final.
Charlene Thomas was disqualified from the 1500m for stepping off the track. Tom Lancashire also failed to advance in the men's 1500m, while Andrew Sutcliffe, Max Eaves and Luke Cutts all missed out on the pole-vault final.
British record holder Lawrence Okoye was downcast after finishing last in the discus final.
Okoye, who has deferred a place at Oxford to study law to concentrate on athletics, improved his national record to 68.24m in May and qualified for the Olympics at last weekend's trials.
But he could only manage a best of 60.09m from his three attempts yesterday evening to finish 12th.
Okoye said: "It's disappointing, I didn't cope with it."
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