World Relays 2025: South Africa seals four of six World Championships relay tickets on offer on first day of competition
Kenya also seals two spots as AFN shifts blame for its incompetence to China
South Africa have sealed four out of the six relay tickets on offer at the World Athletics Relays which began Saturday in Guangzhou, China on Saturday while the Athletics Federation of Nigeria, AFN, has shifted the blame for Nigeria not competing at the event to China.
The South Africans ran two World leads to seal two of the tickets they have secured to participate in the rely events at September’s World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, Japan.
Akani Simbine led the South African men’s 4x100m team to run a world leading time of 37.84 to win heat two of the event to seal their fourth straight trip to the World Athletics’ flagship event.
The South Africans ran in the final of the event since their return to the global stage in 2019 in Doha, Qatar.
South Africa, complete with the Nigeria-born Udeme Okon, also ran a world-leading 3:00.00 world lead to win the first heat of the men’s 4x400m to seal a return to the World Championships after failing to start in 2022 in Oregon, USA.
In the women’s events, the South African 4x400m team ran a new 3:28.01 national record to also seal their return after missing out of the Worlds party in Budapest, Hungary two years ago.
South Africa sealed their fourth spot in the Mixed 4x400m relay where they ran 3:13.79 personal season’s best to place second behind Great Britain and Northern Ireland (3:13.28).
Kenya also sealed two spots in the Tokyo-bound plane in the Mixed relay and the men’s 4x400m relay.
The Kenyans qualified in the Mixed 4x400m relay via the non-automatic qualification spot after running 3:13.41 to place in their heat while in the men’s 4x400m, the team ran 3:00.88, the third fastest time of the day after placing second behind France (3:00.30) in heat four.
Meanwhile, the AFN is blaming all but itself for bungling Nigeria’s chances of going the easier route to seal relay spots for the Tokyo event like they did last year to seal four spots for the Paris 2024 Olympics.
The AFN blames host China for not issuing visas to the Nigerian team on time while West African rival, Ghana, had no such issue.
