Athletics: Super Marion's nemesis aims for a full house

It is a year and nine months now since Debbie Ferguson ran the anchor leg for the Bahamas in the 4 x 100m relay final at the Sydney Olympics. She still shivers, though, at the thought of setting off down the home straight in Stadium Australia knowing that Marion Jones was ready to chase after her.

"Was I looking out for Marion?" she said, taking a break from her Commonwealth Games preparations to cast her mind back to that momentous night. "I knew she was coming. You saw the 100m final. She won by a landslide. You saw the gap between first and second. Well, I got eighth. I knew she would be coming – and coming fast.

"I was so scared and so nervous I think it actually helped me respond to the pressure. I knew if I had got run down by Marion Jones it would have been difficult for me going back home and saying, 'You know what? I tried'. Some would have understood and some wouldn't. So I was just running scared. I gave it all I had got – and it worked out."

It did indeed. Ferguson crossed the line a quarter of a second clear of the Superwoman of the track. The result was: 1 Bahamas, 2 Jamaica, 3 USA. It was the first Olympic success in track and field for the Bahamas, a tiny Caribbean island with a population of 270,000, roughly the same as Coventry. It was a famous victory too, having been achieved at the expense of the world's highest-profile female athlete – and of the world's superpower nation (population over 100 times that of the Bahamas).

The irony was that Ferguson and her team-mates – Chandra Sturrup, Sevatheda Fynes and Pauline Davis-Thompson – were all products of the American collegiate system. Ferguson is a graduate in biology from the University of Georgia and is now based at the University of Miami.

The winning quartet – plus Eldece Clark-Lewis, who earned a medal for running in the heats – were feted with six days of national celebrations when they returned. They were hailed as The Golden Girls and the mood of national gratitude has yet to subside. In May the five each received 20,000 sq ft plots of land overlooking the Caribbean as a gift from the government.

"We're really happy and thankful for that," Ferguson said. "But the most rewarding thing of all was just standing on that podium, hearing our national anthem. That's what it's all about."

It's what it will be all about for Ferguson and her team-mates in Manchester too. Ferguson has a world championship gold medal to match her Olympic prize, having anchored the Bahamas to victory in the 4 x 100m in Seville in 1999. She also has a world championship silver from Edmonton last summer, where she finished a metre behind Jones in the 200m.

The 26-year-old has yet to win a Commonwealth Games medal of any colour, though. She has three chances in Manchester: in the 100m, the 200m and the 4 x 100m relay. The competition in the individual events is sure to be tough, especially in the 100m. Tanya Lawrence of Jamaica clocked 10.95sec as runner-up to Jones in Monaco on Friday night. Ferguson was fifth in 11.08, a season's best. In the relay in Manchester she will have the support of another two of the Golden Girls. Davis-Thompson and Clark-Lewis have slipped into retirement since Sydney, but Sturrup and Fynes are both still going strong – and fast.

"We have a junior in the team with us now," Ferguson said. "Hopefully we can be the new Golden Girls, Golden Girls No 2. The great thing about the Commonwealth Games is that it's less pressure. It's not like the world champs or the Olympics. It's just laid-back and fun... Plus the Americans are not there, of course."

Which means there will be no Marion Jones to worry about on the last leg of the relay this time.