Relay teams from Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Botswana, Côte D’Ivoire and Liberia are gearing up to head to Paris this summer to represent their countries in several races at the 2024 Olympics.
At last weekend’s World Athletics Relays Bahamas ‘24, Botswana made history as the first African country to win a men’s sprint event at the World Relays. Eight months after getting disqualified at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Botswana’s men’s 4x400m team cruised to win gold on Sunday, with a world-leading time of 2:59.11 minutes, anchored by a blistering 43.72 seconds split by versatile sprinter Letsile Tebogo.
Botswana’s dominance was pronounced by the 1.64 seconds time gap between them and runners up, South Africa. On Saturday, the men’s 4x400m of both Southern African countries qualified for the summer Olympics in Paris, alongside Nigeria’s team — which finished outside the podium places during Sunday’s finals.
Held in Nassau, this year’s World Relays served as Olympic qualifiers for 70 out of the 80 spots across five relay events. Ten African teams from six countries qualified for four events, with no African representative making it into the women’s 4x400m Olympic event. Nigeria qualified in all the other events, making it one of six countries to qualify for four events.
In addition to the men’s 4x400m, Nigeria’s mixed 4x400m team secured its Olympics berth on Saturday by qualifying for the final. The team finished just outside the top three podium places on Sunday, but recorded a new African record of 3:12.87 minutes. The West African country’s 4x100m teams qualified for the Olympics on Sunday, with the women’s team winning its Olympic qualifying heat event and the men’s team coming in as runners up in heat two.
The men’s 4x100m teams of Liberia, Ghana and South Africa also secured spots through the Olympic qualifying heat events. Ghana and South Africa won heats two and three respectively, while Liberia placed second in heat one. In one of the several heart-warming videos that filled social media, Nigerian and Ghanaian athletes jumped and danced together in celebration of their Olympic qualifications.
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AFRICA TO THE OLYMPICS! 🌍 Nigeria, Ghana and Liberia’s best sprinters celebrate at the World Relays after all qualifying for the Paris Olympics in the 4x100m relay. 🇳🇬 🇬🇭 🇱🇷 This is why we love track.
Joining Nigeria as the only other African country to qualify for the women’s 4x100m event, Côte D’Ivoire finished second in heat two of the Olympic qualifying round. Speaking in a media interview shortly after the race, the Ivorian team said it was incredibly delighted to have made it to Paris despite having freelanced their way through the qualifying process.
“We need to set up relay camps because we’ve been getting away… We haven’t been doing no handoffs and no training, nothing. We just kind of come to competition and just kind of wing based on talent,” Murielle Ahouré-Demps explained, with the team adding that a gold medal is possible with more training and better chemistry.
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“We need to set up relay camps – we’ve been wingin’ it!!” Côte d’Ivoire’s 4x100m team will be at the Olympics this Summer but I love how honest they were in our interview. They have more than enough talent to walk away with a medal, they just need to practice 🇨🇮🇨🇮
These are the African Relay teams who have qualified for Paris 2024 Olympics:
Mixed 4x400m: Nigeria
Men’s 4x400m: Botswana, South Africa, Nigeria
Men’s 4x100m: Ghana, South Africa, Nigeria, Liberia
Women’s 4×100: Nigeria, Côte D’Ivoire
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Publish date : 2024-05-07 07:00:00
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