| 1 | Rußland | RUS | 3:22,24 | Q |
| (Tatyana Chebykina, Svetlana Goncharenko, | ||||
| Tatyana Zakharova, Yelena Andreyeva) | ||||
| 2 | Australien | AUS | 3:26,08 | Q |
| (Lee Naylor, Renee Poetschka, | ||||
| Melinda Gainsford-Taylor, Cathy Freeman) | ||||
| 3 | Kuba | CUB | 3:26,32 | Q |
| (Surella Morales, Nancy McLeon, | ||||
| Idalmis Bonne, Julia Duporty) | ||||
| 4 | Ukraine | UKR | 3:26,43 | |
| (Viktoriya Fomenko, Olga Moroz, | ||||
| Irina Lenskaya, Yelena Rurak) | ||||
| 5 | Frankreich | FRA | 3:27,11 | |
| (Marie-Louise Bevis, Viviane Dorsile-El Haddad, | ||||
| Evelyne Élien, Marie-José Pérec) | ||||
| 6 | Spanien | ESP | 3:31,71 | |
| (Esther Lahoz, Sandra Myers, | ||||
| Miriam Bravo, Yolanda Reyes) | ||||
| Kolumbien | COL | DNF | ||
| (Patricia Rodríguez, Manuela Mera Elia, | ||||
| Mirtha Brock, Norfalia Carabalí) |
| 1 | USA | USA | 3:23,29 | Q |
| (Kim Graham, Rochelle Stevens, | ||||
| Nicole Green, Camara Jones) | ||||
| 2 | Jamaika | JAM | 3:23,71 | Q |
| (Claudine Williams, Merlene Frazer, | ||||
| Revoli Campbell, Sandie Richards) | ||||
| 3 | Deutschland | GER | 3:23,84 | Q |
| (Linda Kisabaka, Karin Janke, | ||||
| Sandra Kuschmann, Uta Rohländer) | ||||
| 4 | Nigeria | NGR | 3:25,42 | q |
| (Falilat Ogunkoya, Olabisi Afolabi, | ||||
| Omolade Akinremi, Fatima Yusuf) | ||||
| 5 | Großbritannien | GBR | 3:25,50 | q |
| (Melanie Neef, Stephanie Llewellyn, | ||||
| Lorraine Hanson, Georgine Oladapo) | ||||
| 6 | Tschechische Republik | CZE | 3:26,27 | |
| (Nadezda Kostovalová, Hana Benešová, | ||||
| Ludmila Formanová, Helena Dziurová-Fuchsová) | ||||
| 7 | Italien | ITA | 3:30,88 | |
| (Francesca Carbone, Patrizia Spuri, | ||||
| Danielle Perpoli, Virna De Angeli) |