| 1 | USA | USA | 41,52 | Q | |
| Chryste Gaines, Marion Jones, | |||||
| Inger Miller, Gail Devers) | |||||
| 2 | Frankreich | FRA | 42,53 | Q | NR |
| (Fréderiqué Bangué, Christine Arron, | |||||
| Delphine Combe, Sylviane Felix) | |||||
| 3 | Nigeria | NGR | 43,00 | Q | |
| (Beatrice Utondu, Endurance Ojokolu, | |||||
| Angela Atiede, Chioma Ajunwa) | |||||
| 4 | Griechenland | GRE | 43,15 | ||
| (Maria Tsoni, Ekaterini Koffa, | |||||
| Marina Vassarmidou, Ekaterini Thanou) | |||||
| 5 | Australien | AUS | 43,21 | ||
| (Nova Peris-Kneebone, Lauren Hewitt, | |||||
| Melinda Gainsford, Cathy Freeman) | |||||
| 6 | Brasilien | BRA | 43,89 | NR | |
| (Rita Gomes, Katia Santos, | |||||
| Cleide Amaral, Lucimar de Moura) | |||||
| 7 | Italien | ITA | 44,16 | ||
| (Elena Sordelli, Giada Gallina, | |||||
| Manuela Grillo, Manuela Levorato) | |||||
| Ukraine | UKR | DQ | |||
| Oksana Gouskova, Viktoriy Fomenko, | |||||
| Irina Pukha, Anzhela Kravchenko) |
| 1 | Bahamas | BAH | 42,19 | Q | |
| (Eldece Clarke, Savatheda Fynes, | |||||
| Debbie Ferguson, Pauline Davis) | |||||
| 2 | Kamaika | JAM | 42,31 | Q | |
| (Beverly McDonald, Merlene Frazer, | |||||
| Juliet Cuthbert, Beverly Grant) | |||||
| 3 | Deutschland | GER | 42,51 | Q | |
| (Melanie Paschke, Esther Möller, | |||||
| Birgit Rockmeier, Andrea Philipp) | |||||
| 4 | Rußland | RUS | 42,69 | q | |
| (Olga Povtareva, Galina Malchugina, | |||||
| Marina Trandenkova, Yekaterina Leshchova) | |||||
| 5 | China | CHN | 42,92 | q | AR |
| (Pei Fang, Yan Jiankui, | |||||
| Liu Xiaomei, Li Xiumei) | |||||
| 6 | Kolumbien | COL | 43,51 | ||
| (Sandra P. Borrero, Felipa Palacios, | |||||
| Patricia Rodriguez, Mirtha Brock) | |||||
| 7 | Finnland | FIN | 44,08 | ||
| (Sanna Koivisto, Johanna Manninen, | |||||
| Sanna Hernesniemi, Anu Pirttimää) | |||||
| 8 | Japan | JPN | 44,56 | ||
| (Hideko Kijinami, Kaori Yoshida, | |||||
| Toshie Iwamoto, Motoka Arai) |