It turned out to be a bad day for the five Indian relay teams as they failed to qualify for the finals of their respective events at the World Athletics Relays 2026 in Gaborone, Botswana, on Saturday.
On the opening day, the top two relay teams from each heat, along with the next two fastest teams overall, advanced to the finals and clinched automatic berths for the World Athletics Championships 2027 to be held in Beijing.
All five Indian teams, mixed 4x100m, mixed 4x400m, women’s 4x100m, men’s 4x100m and men’s 4x400m, finished outside the qualification spots in their respective heats, missing out on the finals and the first set of Beijing 27 quotas.
All five teams, however, will get another shot at securing a 2027 World Athletics Championships quota on Sunday through the repechage heats.
The Indian men’s 4x400m relay team comprising Dharmveer Choudhary, Rajesh Ramesh, Vishal Thennarasu Kayalvizhi and Manu Thekkinailil Saji clocked 3:00.32 to claim fourth place in Heat 3 and 12th overall. It was India’s best finish on Saturday.
The Indian men’s 4x100m relay team of Animesh Kujur, Gurindervir Singh, Harsh Santosh Raut and Ragul Kumar finished eighth in Heat 3 with a time of 39.07s, placing them 20th overall.
Nithya and Co finish fifth in their heat
The Indian women’s 4x100m relay team of Tamanna, Telangana’s Nithya Gandhe, Sudeshna Shivankar and Sneha Shanuvalli clocked 43.97s to finish fifth in Heat 1, placing 13th overall among 22 teams. As many as seven teams were disqualified across all three heats.
Spain (42.26s) and Canada (42.39s) claimed the top two spots in the heat while Jamaica, led by two-time world 200m champion Shericka Jackson, were the fastest across heats in 41.96s.
India’s mixed 4x400m relay team featuring Olympian Amoj Jacob, Theerthesh P Shetty, Ansa Babu and Rashdeep Kaur clocked 3:16.00 to finish sixth in Heat 1 and 18th overall.
In the mixed 4x100m relay, India did not finish (DNF) the race after a failure in baton exchange. Jamaica created the world record with a time of 39.99 seconds in the event to top the field.
The four Indian teams which finished their races on Saturday, clocked season’s best times.
All non-finalists will compete in additional races, with the top two from each heat securing World Championships berths.
