On the second day of the Nassau World Relay Championships, the Bahamas produced five world champions and added 30 Olympic quotas for Paris. The US teams won the 4x400m medley relay titles, the men’s 4x100m relay and the women’s 4x400m relay.
The Americans would take their fifth men’s 4x400m title, but were outclassed on the first day due to an incorrect arrangement of posts. On the second day, the Yankees ran an easy 2:59.95 min to take the Olympic quota, and in their absence, Botswana won the title in 2:59.11 min, with Letsile Tebogo registering a post of 43.49 sec back in the qualifying heats on 4 May.
In the 4x400m medley relay, the USA set a championship record 3:10.73 min ahead of the Netherlands – 3:11:45 min and Ireland, who performed surprisingly well – 3:11.53 min – a national record. Nigeria finished fourth with an African record of 3:12.87 min.
The American women also improved the championship record in the 4x100m with 41.85 sec and left far behind the quartets of France (42.75 sec) and Great Britain (42.80 sec).
The most impressive gold win by a wide margin came in the women’s 4x400m, where the USA also finished in a world championships relay record of 3:21.70 min, three seconds ahead of silver medalists Poland in 3:24.71 min. The bronze medals in this discipline went to the Canadians – 3:25.17 min.
After the World Championships in Nassau, 14 of the 16 relay finalists for the Paris 2024 Olympics are now clear. The remaining two teams in each relay will be ranked by June 30.
