The World Relays in the Bahamian capital of Nassau have completed the first day of competition. Unfortunately, not one of the four Czech relay teams managed to advance to the finals, so tomorrow they will strive for a nomination for the Olympics in the corrective runs.
The first of the Czech relays was the quarter-race mix, which entered the last of the four heats. He handled the opening section very well Vit Müllerwho passed on Tereza Petržilková in third place. She managed to keep this position for most of the section, but in the end she fell by only one position. Patrik Šorm he passed fourth in contact with the best. Finisher Lada Vondrová then she tried twice to attack the opponents in front of her. Unfortunately, none of the attacks were successful, which meant that our mixed relay crossed the finish line in fourth place in 3:16.56 and will have to fight for a place at the Olympics on Sunday as well. The fastest time in the heats was set by the United States of America, which improved the 2017 World Relays record by almost three seconds to 3:11.52, a top performance given the very strong wind.
Men’s 4×100 meter relay team Zdeněk Stromšík, Jan Veleba, Jan Jirka and Ondřej Macík had a very difficult task, as both the Olympic champions from Italy with the fastest man of the Tokyo 100, Marcello Lamont Jacobs, and the last world champions from the United States of America in the lineup with the star Noah Lyles were drawn for them. In addition, there were other very fast teams at the start. In this case, the lot did not wish the Czech colors to be repaired. Although our team presented itself with very decent passes, in the packed competition, the time of 39.31 was enough for seventh place in this heat. The first Americans shone with this year’s best world performance of 37.49.
The women’s 4×400 meter relay had to do without the traditional supports of Lady Vondrová and Tereza Petržilková, who ran the medley. She was running like that Lourdes Gloria Manuel and she didn’t do bad at all when she passed in fourth position Marcela Pírkovawhich fell by one place, but still passed Nikola Bendova in contact with the third and fourth relays. Subsequently, Bendová moved to fourth position for a while, but her Cuban rival returned the attack in the final meters. The finish was in charge of the representative relay team returning Barbora Malíková, which unfortunately did not move up in the ranking, so our girls are fifth in the second run with a time of 3:34.85. Perhaps a little unexpectedly, the fastest time of all the relays was achieved by the Irish women, who improved the national record of their country to 3:24.38.
The Czech performance on Saturday evening was closed by the men’s 4×400 meter relay. He couldn’t miss the first section Matej Krsek, who was an equal opponent to his rivals and passed as fifth. He took the pin from him John the Carpenter, which dropped one position to sixth place. Our line-up also featured after the run Michal Desenský. The finisher followed up the two commemorations of the last appearance of the Czech quarterbacks in Nassau seven years ago Pavel Maslak, who in the end had to fend off an attack by the Turk Bekre Akcam, which he was unable to resist on the target board. The Czech relay took seventh place in 3:06.86. The fastest relay of the heats was the one from Botswana in 2:59.73.
The only discipline without Czech participation was the women’s 4×100 meter relay, and here the fastest American women were by far the fastest in the heats in 42.21.
