It was a heart wrenching moment for the nation when the Indian women’s quartet of 4x400m relay could not qualify for the finals after they had finished seventh in qualifying heats in the Olympic on Friday.

The India’s overall campaign was over when the team including Satti Geetha, Manjeet Kaur, Chitra Soman and Mandeep Kaur clocked 3:28.83s in the eight-team heat number one.

India had entered the race as 15th best timed team and was unable to beat their 3:28.29s effort in Korat (Thailand) in Asian Grand Prix two months ago, which booked a berth in Olympics. On the contrary, they could not even perform better than their national record of 3:26.89s, which they had set at Athens’s Olympics in 2004.

The German team was the last one to qualify in the heat one (3:25.55s), and our Indian girls were even more than three seconds behind them. The top three finishers in the heat were, Russia (3:23.71s), Cuba (3:25.46s) and Britain (3:25.48s).