Jamaican-born sprinter Merlene Ottey saw her dream of appearing at a historic eighth consecutive Olympic games fail to materialise, after falling well short of Solvenia's qualifying mark, at a meet in Maribor, Slovenia, yesterday.

Ottey, who is still the current 100m and 200m national record holder, finished second in the 100m, clocking 11.70. The athlete, who is also the holder of the 200m indoor record of 21.87, had a season's best of 11.60, well short of the 11.42 required for the Olympic B standard.

The A standard is 11.32 seconds. Slovenia's current top sprinter, Pia Tajnikar, has a season-best 11.35 seconds.

In seven Olympic Games, with three silver and five bronze, Ottey, now 48, has won more medals in track and field competition than any other woman.

It is possible for Ottey to secure another medal if the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decides to upgrade the athletes, who finished in the 2000 games behind USA sprinter Marion Jones. Jones has since been disqualified after admitting to having used performance enhancing drugs earlier this year.

However, Ottey whose first Olympic medal, a bronze in the 200m, came in 1980 in Moscow has still not called it quits.

A day before the race, Ottey's Slovenia coach Srdjan Djordjevic was quoted as saying: "Of course she wants to run at these (Beijing) games because she would be the first ever to participate at eight consecutive Olympics,"

"If there are ideal weather conditions, she could qualify."

However, according to Robert Rudelic of the Athletic Club Poljane, which organised yesterday's meet, the conditions were not ideal.

"Conditions were bad, she had wind in her chest and she missed the qualifying time by 28 hundredths of a second," he said.

Despite the disappointment, Djordjevic said: "She will still train simply because she can still run very fast."