40 global track stars were in The Bahamas for the Paris Olympic relays qualifier during the World Athletics Relays at the Thomas A. Robinson Stadium in Nassau on Saturday, 4 May and Sunday 5 May 2024. The DR qualified to participate in the 4 x 400m mixed relay, the same competition in which the country won the silver medal in the 2020 (2021) Tokyo Olympic Games. Marileidy Pauino, Anabel Medina and Alexander Ogando were on the Tokyo winning team and repeated in The Bahamas competition.
The DR qualified with a 4 x 400 m Season Best of 3:14.39. Yeral Núñez joined relay members Marileidy Paulino, Alexander Ogando and Anabel Medina Ventura in The Bahamas.
The US team won the race with 3:11.52 – Ryan Willie, Matthew Boling, Kendal Ellis and Lynna Irby-Jackson.
The Olympics website explains the qualification is not final and depends on the registration by the Dominican Olympic Committee. “National Olympic Committees have exclusive authority over the representation of their respective countries at the Olympic Games, so each athlete’s participation in the Paris Games will depend on the selection of their NOC to represent their delegation at Paris 2024,” the Olympics website explains.
World top-ranking runner, Marileidy Paulino made the difference in the relay qualifier race. She came from behind in 5th place and her adrenaline led her to clock a season’s best time of 48.93 to ensure the qualification by tenths of seconds.
The eight teams that qualified were USA (3:11.52), Netherlands (3:12.16), Ireland (3:12.50), Belgium (3:13.18) Poland (3:13.53), Nigeria (3:13.79), Dominican Republic (3:14.48) and France (3:14.71).
Sportsmax reported that the work of Marileidy Paulino during the first series of the mixed 4x400m Relay of the Bahamas 2024 World Relay Championship was “transcendental”. “The Olympic medalist ran the last 150 meters of the race in epic fashion and surpassed her rivals from Jamaica and the Bahamas to reach second place, which assured the Dominican Republic of a quota for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games,” reported the online sports news service.
Paulino clocked a partial time of 48.93 seconds. She was not only the fastest woman runner in the four series of the qualification, but she was also the only one to set a time under 49 seconds. It was decisive in the outcome of the race. Running alongside them were Alexander Ogando, with whom he had shared a team in the silver medal won in Tokyo 2020, Anabel Medina and Yeral Núñez, as reported on X.
The reigning World 400m champion Marileidy Paulino entered the race with the Dominican team in fifth place. Paulino got the baton down the field and produced the 48.93 split on her anchor leg to qualify and move her country up to second (3:14.39) and secure a spot in Saturday’s final alongside the Netherlands that won the heat in 3:12.16.
Paulino is a two-times silver medalist in the 2020 Olympics. She is also a winner of the
World Championships Budapest 2023, and the world’s No. 1 ranking World Athletics in the 400m. Her trainer is Cuban Yaseen Pérez Gómez.
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4 x 400m qualifier race
Colimdo
World Athletics
World Athletics
Olympics
Sportsmax
La Republica Peru
6 May 2024