Sensational performances at the World Relays in Bahamas, including a new Australian record, has seen Australia’s 4x100m teams qualify for the Olympics.
The women’s team of Ebony Lane, Bree Masters, Ella Connolly and Torrie Lewis finished fifth in the final, demonstrating that they are a medal chance come Paris.
Their heat run of 42.83 seconds bettered the national record of 42.94 seconds that the quartet set at the Sydney Track Classic. Making the final automatically qualified the team for Paris, with Lewis out-dipping Cote D’Ivoire’s Marie-Josee Ta Lou-Smith on the line.
“I saw three people leave at the same time, and I was like ‘oh my god, we have to run!’ and then I saw Ta Lou-Smith go past, and then we were fine, and now we’re going to the OLYMPICS!” Lewis said.
The team backed up with a 43.02 second run for fifth, with the bronze medal claimed in 42.80 seconds.
“I think we’re a definite medal chance in Paris,” said Bree Masters, who ran the second leg.
“There’s a lot that we can do to improve upon that race so that we can be one percent better, so we are really confident in July. We’ll all be looking to stay healthy and work hard at home with our personal coaches and work hard as a team to make our exchanges and flight speed as fast as possible.”
The men’s 4x100m team of Sebastian Sultana, Jacob Despard, Calab Law and Josh Azzopardi just missed qualifying for the final – which brought automatic qualification – with a 38.50 second performance. However, they finished second in their repechage heat on the second day of the meet in 38.46 seconds to clinch their spot.
The race went to plan, we had the goal of coming to the Bahamas to qualify for Paris and we have done that! We’ve been working together for a long period of time and to have finally put together a good race is absolutely awesome,” Azzopardi said.
“On a personal note it’s a dream come true, I’m sure I can speak on behalf of the other boys as well! The Olympics is the pinnacle of sport, and to go up against the best in the world in such a strong event is something dreams are made of.”
Australia’s 4x400m teams didn’t fare as well, leaving their selection hopes up to being one of the the two fastest times in the world of the non-qualified teams (14 teams qualified through the World Relays).
The women’s 4x400m clocked runs of 3:28.05 in the repechage and 3:28.20 in the heats, which were the fastest times by an Australian team since 2018. Split times were:
Repechage: 53.22 Bendere Oboya, 50.95 Ellie Beer, 52.56 Mikeala Selaidinakos, 51.32 Alana Yukich
Heat: 52.84 Oboya, 50.99 Beer, 52.87 Selaidinakos, 51.50 Yukich
Australia now needs to run at least 3:27.28 to gain selection, which may prove difficult given the lack of highly contested 4x400m races.
Australia’s men’s team was impacted by illness to national 400m champion Cooper Sherman, who didn’t run in the heats but did in the repechage. The team clocked times of 3:03.81 (heat) and 3:04.68 (repechage).
The team is out of contention for Paris qualification, with a mark of 2:59.11 required. The Australian record, set in 1984, is 2:59.70.
