From the gun, Alice Brown was out fastest for the US in lane 6, almost making up the stagger on Zvetanka Ilieva leading off for Bulgaria on her outside.

All the handoffs were efficient before both Kerstin Behrendt and Galina Malchugina closed the gap on the American Sheila Echols on the second leg.

The American handoff to the year's phenom, world record holder Florence Griffith Joyner was safe but not particularly efficient, the East German underhanded pass to Ingrid Auerswald is a textbook demonstration of an efficient handoff, and gave East Germany the lead.

It would still be expected that the way FloJo dominated the sprint events, she would be able to pull away from Auerswald, but running the longer distance around the turn she only made a marginal gain and Marina Zhirova also put the Soviet team in close contention.

The American handoff was not as efficient as Griffith-Joyner ran up on veteran anchor Evelyn Ashford leaving USA two metres behind.