GB quartet set national record in new Olympic event on an otherwise frustrating Friday evening in Tokyo where Eilish McColgan, Jess Judd, Amy-Eloise Markovc and Sophie McKinna fail to progress

The expected medallists all negotiated qualifying in the women’s 5000m, triple jump and shot put but the only British success in qualifying on Friday night at the Games was in the mixed relay.

Britain set a national record of 3:11.95 in this new event for fourth place in their heat and now have the luxury of bringing in Jodie Williams to challenge for a medal.

There was drama in the opening heat as favourites USA were initially disqualified for having one runner start outside the takeover zone, having won in 3:11.39, only to be reinstated. The Dominican Republic team, second in 3:12.74, were also thrown out for exchanging positions before the takeover zone but were reinstated, too.

Belgium were pushed down to third in 3:12.75 from Ireland’s 3:12.88 as five teams set national records. Germany’s Manuel Sanders was surprisingly the fastest man with a 44.56 final leg. The quickest woman in the heat was Marleidy Paulino who ran 49.6 for the Dominican Republic team.

Six of the eight teams set national records in heat two as Poland won in a European record 3:10.44 from the Netherlands’ 3:10.69.

Britain, who had good starts from Cameron Chalmers (45.8), Zoey Clark (50.4) and Emily Diamond (50.18), were third until the final strides when Jamaica eased past Lee Thompson (45.42) in an area record 3:11.76 to Britain’s national record.

Netherlands’ Ramsey Angela ran the fastest men’s leg of 44.37. Diamond ran the quickest women’s leg, while Jamaica’s Stacey-Ann Williams ran the next best with 50.28.

Hassan cruises as Brits struggle

The first women’s 5000m heat saw a record of sorts despite the stifling humidity. The fastest Olympic heat in history had previously been the time of 14:52.39 run by Meseret Defar but the first seven finishers bettered that.

World 1500m and 10,000m champion Sifan Hassan won with a 60-second last lap in 14:47.89 after staying well back from the solid three minutes per kilometre pace set by Japan’s Ririka Hironaka.

Jess Judd was well placed until the final kilometre and well on target for a huge PB but she lost 20 seconds over the last two laps and missed her 15:06.02 best with 15:09.47 after a 77-second last lap.

She said: “I’m just so disappointed I didn’t have it. I put myself out there but, with about a kilometre to go, I didn’t have it in my legs. I just didn’t kick on when I needed to. It wasn’t like I didn’t do what I was told or knew what I needed to do, I just couldn’t do it.

“It’s still a world standard for next year so that’s good so I got something out of it, but I just couldn’t get my legs going. I need to try and recover between now and the 10,000m, see if I can use that as a run out and see if I can get back in the right shape.”

The second heat was much slower but featured a fast 2:43 final kilometre as Ethiopia’s world indoor 1500m record-setter Gudaf Tsegay won in 14:55.74 from world champion Hellen Obiri’s 14:55.87.

Eilish McColgan was in the thick of the battle until the final kilometre but was continually clipped when running in a big pack with her long back-stride and she suddenly lost all momentum a few laps out and faded to finish 10th in 15:09.68.

She was overtaken late by a charging European indoor 3000m champion Amy-Eloise Markovc, who ran a 65-second final circuit to set a PB of 15:03.22 in ninth.

It took 14:59.55 to make the final, however, with Rio Olympic 800m silver medallist Francine Niyonsaba disqualified after originally finishing in the first five.

McColgan said: “On the first lap I was shouting at them saying ‘stop clipping me, stop clipping me’. Every single lap.

“It plays on your mind because you realise you shouldn’t be speaking during the race, but every lap I felt like ‘I’m going to go down, I’m going to go down’ and then at 600m I got very badly clipped, so I just felt like then it sapped me. I felt good before but after that I was running so slow.

“Every 10 metres I was getting clipped and even Tsegay was saying ‘stop’ as they were clipping her as well. I don’t know who was behind us but even she was getting clipped. The two of us were constantly speaking and I was aware I shouldn’t be constantly shouting and chatting in the middle of the race.

“I was constantly aware, I knew I was going to go down. I could just sense that someone was going to go down. That made me anxious and I had no energy.

“It’s nuts, it is so far off my best, if someone had told me I’d have done that time, I would have thought I’d lose a leg doing that time – it’s so far off me.”

Rojas and Gong lead triple jump and shot qualifiers

World champion Yulimar Rojas still looks on course for Venezuela’s first ever athletics gold as she easily headed the triple jump qualification with a 14.77m leap as 14.22m proved sufficient to make the final.

A world champion also headed the shot as Lijiao Gong topped the qualifiers thanks to a 19.46m throw, with her Chinese team-mate Jiayuan Song the next best with 19.23m.

Former champion Valerie Adams was sixth best with 18.83m.

A throw of 18.57m sufficed for a final spot but Britain’s Sophie McKinna was well below her best and she reached 17.81m with the first of her three throws which placed her 17th out of 32 competitors.

McKinna said: “It wasn’t my best throwing. I’ve had a difficult build-up. Getting here, unfortunately I was one of the athletes in isolation which wasn’t ideal.

“Training went well the last couple of weeks, and I was definitely hoping I could produce more today, but it was just one of those things. We learn from it and move on and compete better next time.

“I normally build on my first throw but, unfortunately, I didn’t do that today. I’ve got to go back and have a look and see what happened, review it and reflect on it.

“This is my first Olympics and obviously a fantastic experience and one that I will use in the future to make sure that I don’t perform like that again.”