Greene plans to sign off with a world record

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Sydney: Maurice Greene plans to sign off in style at the Sydney Olympics on Saturday night by anchoring the US 4x100 metres relay team to a world record.

A late blast of wintry weather and the winds swirling around Stadium Australia have ruled out any world records so far in the athletics programme at the Games.

"It's not over yet," the Olympic 100 metres champion said after an impressive performance by the American team in the Friday's semi-finals."We will see what happens tomorrow. Maybe we will set one then."

Jon Drummond, Bernard Williams, Brian Lewis and Greene clocked 37.82 seconds and the world record of 37.40 is clearly in danger.

Marion Jones' ambition of a record-breaking five gold medals at the Sydney Games was dashed when she finished third in the women's long jump final on Friday, but she still plans to run both relays on Saturday.

Jones has won the 100-200 double and should get another gold in the 4x100 relay. The 4x400 is more problematic.

Big athletics day

Nine finals, including the men's and women's 4x100 and 4x400 relays, will be decided on Saturday.

World champion Inga Babakova of Ukraine is favourite for the women's high jump and Norwegian Trine Hattestad, who has set two world records this year with the redesigned implement, is expected to win the women's javelin.

Ethiopians Gete Wami, the world champion, and Derartu Tulu, the 1992 Barcelona Olympic champion, will duel in the women's 10,000 metres final.Romanian Gabriela Szabo seeks to add the women's 1,500 title to her 5,000 gold and Ali Saidi Sief is the favourite in the men's 5,000.

A huge total of 41 medal events are due to be decided at the Sydney Games on Saturday.

Besides the nine athletics showdowns, the day will start with six canoeing finals in the men's kayak singles, men's canoe singles, women's kayak fours, men's kayak doubles, men's canoe doubles and men's kayak fours.In boxing, medals will be decided in the 48kg, 54kg, 60kg, 67kg, 75kg and 91kg.

The men's soccer final pits Spain against Cameroon, bidding for their first Olympic gold in any sport.

There will be four freestyle wrestling medal events -- the 54kg, 63kg, 76kg and 97kg.

Sailing finals will take place in the men's Finn, Soling and Star categories.In cycling there will be the men's and women's individual time trial finals.Other medal events will be in the women's volleyball, equestrian individual dressage, men's modern pentathlon, women's team rhythmic gymnastics, women's taekwondo over 67kg, men's taekwondo over 80kg, men's diving 10-metre platform, men's hockey, women's basketball and men's handball.



(c) Reuters Limited.