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The first round of the women's 1500m saw Great Britain's three athletes Susan Scott, Lisa Dobriskey and youngster Steph Twell compete for first three positions in their heats to make it through to the Olympic final.
Reigning world champion Maryam Yusuf Jamal of Bahrain won the first heat in 4.05.14. World Junior champion Twell took sixth place after fighting down the home straight to finish in 4.06.68. Her hopes of qualifying as fastest loser were dashed with a fast final heat.
Iryna Lishchynska of Ukraine won the second heat in 4:13.60. Scott came fourth in the very slow race with 4:14:66, which will not take her through to the final.
Commonwealth champion Dobriskey ran a relaxed and controlled race to qualify in an easy third position in 4:03:22. As the only British athlete going through to the women's final she is also a favourite to win a medal.
Russian former two-time world champion Tatyana Tomashova and compatriot Yelena Soboleva, the two top 1,500m performers in the world this year, were not allowed to compete at Beijing after testing positive in pre-Games drug tests.
Goldie close
Goldie Sayers narrowly missed out on an Olympic medal in the javelin as she broke the British record only to come fourth.
The 26-year-old was just 0.38m behind bronze medallist Christina Obergfoll of Germany, when she had to rush to take her final throw when the clock started unexpectedly early on her.
Sayers' new personal best and British record of 65.75m was just not enough for a podium finish as Barbora Spotakova of the Czech Republic snatched gold with her penultimate throw, denying long-time leader Maria Abakumova of Russia.
Michael Rimmer looked all at sea and blamed his recent food poisoning as he went out of the 800m semi-finals.
Rimmer never got going at the back of the field in a strangely-run race and he never looked like making it through to the final.











