Jamaica won Heat One of the men’s 4×100 metres to advance to the final at the Tokyo Olympic Games Thursday morning (Wednesday night Jamaica time) as perennial medal rivals, the United States of America failed to progress.

Jamaica’s win was achieved despite two poor baton exchanges and the Jamaicans will still enter the final with the fastest time from the heat.

The Jamaicans led from the start through Jhevaughn Minzie, whose exchange with Julian Forte was fairly good as Forte ran a decent leg to keep the Jamaicans in front, but the second exchange with Yohan Blake was poor. Blake had to virtually stop to collect the baton.

Blake, however, kept the Jamaicans in contention, but again had a poor exchange with Oblique Seville on the final leg, which was closely contested at the top of the homestretch. Seville, however, ran well to place distance between Jamaica’s rivals to win comfortably.

Jamaica clocked 37.82 seconds with Great Britain finishing second in 38.02 and Japan third in 38.16. All were season-bests.

Meanwhile, in Heat Two, the USA, a favourite for the gold medal, had some disastrous baton exchanges and failed to progress as they finished sixth, with China winning ahead of Canada and Italy.

China timed a season-best of 37.92 seconds with Canada, who had men’s 200 metres winner Andre deGrasse running a brilliant final leg, also doing a season-best of 37.92 with Italy establishing a national record of 37.95.