Men's 4x400m quartet pick up Great Britain's fourth medal in Doha

From David Jordan, Sportsbeat, in Doha

GREAT Britain struck bronze in the men's 4x400m relay as USA romped to gold at the World Indoor Athletics Championships in Doha.

MAKING UP GROUND: Great Britain's 4x400m men's relay quartet started slowly but took advantage of injuries to the Bahamas and Jamaica to strike bronze (Getty Images)

The American quartet of Jamaal Torrance, Greg Nixon, Tavaris Tate and Bershawn Jackson dominated from the start in the ASPIRE Dome to finish in a world leading time of 3:03.40 minutes.

But an eventful final saw both Jamaica and the Bahamas pull out with injury and the Dominican Republic disqualified, allowing the British quartet of Conrad Williams, Nigel Levine, Chris Clarke and Richard Buck to capture Great Britain's fourth medal of the competition.

The Bahamas' Andretti Bain and Jamaica's Sanjay Ayre pulled up in the second leg, leaving four quartets competing for the tree medal places.

But with the Americans already streets ahead, the race for silver and bronze took centre stage.

Belgium's Jonathan Borlee pulled away in the last 100m to strike silver in a personal best 3:06.94 but Buck, who struck silver with the British quartet at last year's European Indoor Championships in Turin, held off pressure from the Dominican Republic's Yoel Tapia to seal the final spot on the podium.

The Dominican quartet was disqualified after the race, but that will mean little to the British quartet who added to their silver from last summer's outdoor World Championships in Berlin.

"I saw the other two teams go off quick and I thought I'll catch you up, you'll tire," said anchor leg runner Richard Buck.

"But to be fair they both kept going and I had to really dig deep to get past the guy from the Dominican Republic.

"But I got to the home straight and I looked up and I could hear the Great Britain fans roaring me on and the flags waving and I just went for it."

Meanwhile, in the women's 4x400m relay it was the Americans again who took gold but this time the margin was a lot closer with the Russians just 0.1 seconds behind to capture silver.

The American quartet of Debbie Dunn, Deedee Trotter, Natasha Hastings and Allyson Felix brought the baton home in a time of 3:27.34 minutes.

Svetlana Pospelova, Natalya Nazarova, Kseniya Vdovina and Tatyana Firova secured the silver for the Russians while Jamaica finished a further second back in third.

Great Britain finished last but recorded a season's best of 3:30.29 minutes with their team of Kim Wall, Vicki Barr, Perri Shakes-Drayton and Lee McConnell.