The 4 × 100 metres relay at the 1983 World Championships in Athletics was held in the Helsinki Olympic Stadium on August 10. Although this event was won by the East German team, it is generally accepted that those athletes were part of a programme of performance-enhancing drug usage (doping in East Germany). There are strong calls for the Great Britain team to be awarded the gold medal since they can be considered to have been the real winners, as is often the case involving those who lost out to East German drug cheats in the 1980s.[1]
| Gold: | Silver: | Bronze: | |
Silke Gladisch Marita Koch Ingrid Auerswald Marlies Göhr | Joan Baptiste Kathy Cook Beverley Callender Shirley Thomas |  Leleith Hodges Jacqueline Pusey Juliet Cuthbert Merlene Ottey |
Existing records at the start of the event.
| World record | 41.53 | Berlin, Germany | July 31, 1983 | ||
| Championship record | New event | ||||
All times shown are in seconds.
(Ginka Zagorcheva, Anelia Nuneva, Nadezhda Georgieva, Pepa Pavlova) 43.19 Q
(Carla Mercurio, Erica Rossi, Daniela Ferrian, Marisa Masullo) 44.46
(Sisko Markkanen-Hanhijoki, Helinä Marjamaa, Margareete Honkaharju, Riitta Ketonen) 44.77
(Britt Hansen, Lisbet Nissen-Petersen, Helle Theil, Dorthe A. Rasmussen) 45.04 (Leleith Hodges, Jacqueline Pusey, Juliet Cuthbert, Merlene Ottey) 43.10 Q
(Marie-France Loval, Marie-Christine Cazier-Ballo, Rose-Aimée Bacoul, Liliane Gaschet) 43.52 Q
(Angela Bailey, Marita Payne-Wiggins, Tanya Brothers, Molly Killingbeck) 44.19 Q
(Alice Brown, Diane Williams, Chandra Cheeseborough, Randy Givens) 44.20
(Shonel Ferguson, Pauline Davis, Whelma Colebrook, Oralee Fowler) 44.76
(Grace Armah, Mercy Addy, Elisabeth Wilson, Mary Mensah) 47.51 (Leleith Hodges, Jacqueline Pusey, Juliet Cuthbert, Merlene Ottey) 42.73 (Ginka Zagorcheva, Anelia Nuneva, Nadezhda Georgieva, Pepa Pavlova) 42.93 (Angela Bailey, Marita Payne-Wiggins, Tanya Brothers, Molly Killingbeck) 43.05 (Marie-France Loval, Marie-Christine Cazier-Ballo, Rose-Aimée Bacoul, Liliane Gaschet) 43.40