Spain surprised itself at the Bahamas Relay World Cupand when everything turned to drama he shattered the forecasts, broke a national record of more than 30 years and qualified the men’s and women’s 4×400 meter relay for the Paris 2024 Olympic Gamestwo teams that could be three if the classification of the women’s 4x100m is confirmed by ranking, and even four if they try to find a quality race in the mixed long relay now that all its components have done their homework in the gender ones. It is the first time since Barcelona 92 – then there were three – that Spain will bring more than one speed team to the Games..
The surprise began in the women’s 4×400 meters, a team that confirmed the generational change in the return to the track with four twenty-somethings, Carmen Avilés (2002), Berta Segura (2003), Eva Santidrián (2000) and Blanca Hervás (2002)which left the thirty-year-old Laura Bueno, seven-time national champion, on the bench compared to the day before, the only one who has gone under 52 seconds, and owner of the event with the absent Aauri Bokesa for the last decade.
The four Spaniards erased a Spanish record that was on its way to turning 33 years old, the one that Julia Merino, Blanca Lacambra, Sandra Myers – still a national record holder and the only one to run in less than 50 seconds – and Gregoria Ferrer recorded at the 1991 Tokyo World Cup and which led less than a year later to the team’s only Olympic participation with Esther Lahoz, Cristina Pérez, Gregoria Ferrer and Julia Merino. Since then, the Spanish women’s 4×400 meters has not entered the Olympic Games.
From those 3:27.57 to these 3:27.30, a qualitative leap in the repechage round compared to the first round on Saturday (3:31.09)and which began with a 53.35s from Carmen Avilés, which left the team in fourth place, the 51.54s thrown by Berta Segura, which kept the team in the fight, and the spectacular 51.42s of Eva Santidrián, who risked being trapped by the rope but maneuvered well to gain positions and leave Spain only behind Belgium when Blanca Hervás received (51.42s), who followed in her wake to the finish line and opened a gap with the Czechs, Australians and Ukrainians.
The merit, furthermore, is double because both Segura and Hervás had run an hour and a half earlier with the mixed 4x400m relay. “The last few meters I was dying and I just thought ‘don’t get caught’,” Hervás admitted. “We were the ones who trusted the most, maybe people in Spain believed that we didn’t have it so close at hand.“, claimed Santidrián, who remembered the athletes who were part of the concentrations and did not run.
The men’s long relay returns from Athens 2004
There was more hope in the men’s 4×400 meters, a team that with the women’s 4x100m is in the economic plans of the Government’s Team España Elite due to its results during the Olympic cycle – world indoor silver in 2022 – but whose Guadianesque performance left it outside Tokyo. There will finally be the Olympic Games for the ‘Spanish Beatles’, the generation of fifth place in the London 2017 World Cup, where it all beganalthough from that only one Óscar Husillos remained in the play-off after recovering from the intestinal problems that prevented him from running the previous night.
Coach Pepe Peiró moved the pieces. From Iñaki Cañal, Lucas Búa, Manuel Guijarro and Bernat Erta to Iñaki Cañal, Manuel Guijarro, Óscar Husillos and Julio Arenas, although he had also run the mixed race a while before. The Asturian clocked a time of 46.19s to allow Manuel Guijarro (44.83s, the fastest, pure rock from Villarrobledo) to lead the way along the free lane, and although he got a little nervous at the end, Husillos, despite the Zambian’s overtaking David Mulenga maintained his momentum in the counterattack (45.92s), and allowed Arenas (45.45s) to withstand the Polish attack, complete the victory in the final stretch and raise his arms victoriously. From 3:06.84 the day before to 3:02.39, a mark closer to the sub-3 that this team with variable composition can achieve at the peak of the summer and they already came close to 4th place in the European Championship in Munich.
20 years after Athens 2004, the men’s long relay returns to the Olympic Games.
The long relays changed the face of Spain, which began adding disappointments. Coach Pepe Peiró wanted to cover everything when it seemed that the bet on the mixed 4x400m was the most realistic. Cañal was saved for later, and formed with David García Zurita (46.25s), Hervás (51.22s), Arenas (45.46s) and Segura (52.18s), and although Saturday’s performance was slightly improved ( 3:15.11), never caught up with Great Britain (3:12.99) and Anna Ryzhykova’s Ukraine (3:14.49), escaped at the end. Perhaps a tailored race to find a mark before June 30 will serve to beat Spain’s Tokyo record (3:13.29), since there will be the classification for the two remaining places by ranking.
The disappointment and bad luck of the women’s 4×100 meters
Of the 16 teams that will run in Saint-Denis, 14 won the ticket to the Bahamas and another two will do so by brand, that is the hope of the three Spanish relays that were left out. And none has a more open path than the women’s 4x100m, although the disappointment was huge, as reflected by thein the face of Jaël-Sakura Bestué, who is trying to hold back her tears, disappointed, reflective, crestfallen, while on her right Sonia Molina-Prados tries to convince everyone that in the summer they will run yes or yes in the Paris 2024 Olympic Gamesa possibility that should have materialized this morning.
Spain, with its 42.85 seconds from yesterday, occupies first place for the repechage, and there is still the European Championship in Rome in a month to run even faster. It is the only possibility for the only Spanish team that has ever been to the Olympic Games in history and the one that had the best a priori chance of doing so.
In the second qualifying round on Sunday the same thing happens as the night before. Maribel Pérez who receives with a clear advantage and ends up prostrating in the straight before the power of the Ivorian Maria-Josée Ta-Lou, two-time world medalist and 10.72s personal best in the 100 meter dash, a marvel with which it is impossible to stand face to face. The harder it gets Italy, which with four athletes of the level of Spain, three of them without going below 11.30s, touched the world podium last summer in Budapest and now wins the series in 42.60salmost the Spanish record that the same Spanish lineup of Sonia Molina-Prados, Jael Bestué, Paula Sevilla and Maribel Pérez ran to be 5th in the Eugene 2022 World Cup, a ceiling not yet surpassed.
In Nassau, the Spanish women run in 42.88s, a little faster Sonia Molina-Prados (11.80s) and Paula Sevilla (11.48s thrown), a little worse Jaël Bestué, the pillar of this team with 10.13s thrown and much weaker is the theoretically fastest, Pérez (10.47s), who promises that everyone has given their all and recognizes that they have not been lucky: the classification system does not take times into account, only positions. On Saturday they finished in 6th place, but fourth place in the fastest series left them out. On Sunday it was Ivory Coast’s turn again, despite the fact that it was the only country of those remaining for that round that ran faster than Spain, a decision by the organization that was difficult to understand, and with the sixth time of the total they also stayed to the doors.
The men’s 4×100 competes without reservations
The other relay, the men’s 4×100 meters, paradoxically the one that has participated in the Olympic Games the most times (1920, 1924, 1928, 1972, 1976, 1988, 1992 and 1996) will need a miracle, since the repechage is now priced below the 38.46s of the Spanish record that at the moment seems distant. In the Bahamas the team did not perform at its best level. 39.35s on Saturday and, even worse, 39.51s on Sunday. Sergio López Barranco (9.50s) and Guillem Crespí (9.61s) exchanged positions so that the Murcian closed this time after Arnau Monné opened (10.63s) and Daniel Rodríguez (9.77s) completed the second corner.
The team complained that only five athletes were sent to the Bahamas, which left little room for maneuver: Pablo Montalvo flew despite a possible broken ischium because tickets could no longer be exchangedand López Barranco risked his physique on Saturday despite a sprained ankle minutes before the first race. “A World Cup that qualifies for the Olympic Games happens rarely in life, so I was going to give 100% for all the teammates and concentrations we have done. We are very disappointed, the goal was to get below 38.80s,” explained the Murcian.
hoka one one Rocket X 2 Sneakers
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Ismael Pérez is a journalist who is an expert in athletics and Olympic sports. He got hooked on the Olympic Games in Athens 2004 and since then he has been happy following competitions from the press gallery, talking to athletes, following them on social networks and telling stories, but also going out on his bicycle or jumping at a concert.
He studied a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism at the University of Valladolid and has a Master’s Degree in Journalism and Digital Communication at the EAE Business School in Madrid. She has lived in Turin and Rome and has covered current affairs of all kinds in El Norte de Castilla, El Mundo de Castilla y León, Televisión Castilla y León, Rome Reports and worked in corporate communications at Burson Cohn & Wolfe. She has also written about major athletics championships in Somos Olimpicos, Vavel or Foroatletismo and has spoken at the IAAF Global Running Conference in Lanzhou (China).
With a career of more than a decade in the profession, since 2019 he has been linked to Runner’s World, Men’s Health and Women’s Health in Hearst Magazines and writing about current events in competitive athletics, popular races, triathlon, trail running, Olympics, although sometimes also He has tried cycling, climbing, sailing, swimming, tennis, canoeing, judo, snowboarding… or anything that has a place in the Olympic Games (not the Olympics).
