Silver and bronze brooch in the World Relays that are now the history of Spanish athletics. The women’s 4×400 and 4×100 were second and third respectively, defending the podiums achieved last year in Guangzhou. The ‘Golden Bubbles’ of the long quartet have also done it in a big way, destroying their Spanish record by almost three seconds.
Paula Sevilla, Ana Prieto, Rocío Arroyo and Blanca Hervás They had a prodigious performance and only the great performance of the thriving Norway prevented them from repeating the 2025 gold in China.
Sevilla, in exceptional form, gave Prieto first. The Andalusian, a ‘newbie’ who now runs like a veteran, dropped to third place when it was time to take the open lane but was saving her strength for the final stretch.
Thus things, the eighth century Arroyo was second at the time of taking the baton, climbing up to first place in the last meters to leave the judgment of the race in the hands of Blanca.
It goes without saying that The Madrid native ‘allowed herself’ to be easily beaten by Henriette Jæger in the counterattack hoping to return the favor in the last 100 meters but the Norwegian is a world and European medalist and He withstood Hervás’ final challenge to win with the best world record of the year (3:20.96).
The ‘Golden Bubbles’ were finally silver with a sensational time (3:21.25) which improves by almost three seconds the previous national record (3:24.13), valid precisely since the World Relays last year. Canada (3:22.66) completed the podium.
Minutes before, the ‘Red Bullets’ of the 4×100, second last year in Guangzhou and fifth months later at the Tokyo World Cup, they achieved a bronze of great value that confirms their status as a great power.
With all the artillery in the fray -Lucía Carrillo, Jaël Bestué, Esperança Cladera and Maribel Pérez-the Spanish were only surpassed by Jamaicans (42.00) and Canadians (42.17), to finish third with a time of 42.31, two tenths off their national record.
Two tickets to the Ultimate Championships
With the six finals in less than an hour, it was time to make a move and put all the eggs in the women’s 4×400 and 4×100 baskets. This meant weakening the two mixed quartets for their respective careers, but with so little recovery time it was impossible to double.
The first to jump into the blue tartan of the Botswana National Stadium was the short mixed quartet, which like the long one was looking for one of the six tickets for the Ultimate Championships in Budapest next September.
Without Bestué and Maribel in the running, Spain needed ‘help’, which came from the British and Dutch, who did not finish the race. Guillem Crespí, Esther Navero, Andoni Calbano and Aitana Rodrigo finished fifth with a time of 41.05half a second slower than yesterday’s national record in the heats (40.51), but with the place he secured for the Hungarian event.
In this race, by the way, the Jamaicans Ackeem Blake, Tina Clayton, Kadrian Goldson and Tia Clayton improved their world record yesterday (39.99) with a time of 39.62, beating Canada (40.22) and the United States (40.33).
As for the mixed 4×400, I had lost Sevilla and Hervás, replaced by Eva Santidrián and Carmen Avilés But at the beginning he benefited from the muscle injury of the first Polish reliever, so it was enough to not be last to achieve a place in Budapest.
The Spanish were in tow from the first post, because García Zurita came from racing with the men’s 4×400and Santidrián and Julio Arenas could not escape from that seventh place with some very ‘dirty’ baton changes.
It had to be Avilés, with a wonderful post, that hunted down the Australian reliever with a chest bump over the same finish line, to surpass it by just two hundredths. The time (3:13.05) was the least important because the objective in this case was to qualify for those new Ultimate Championships. Gold went to the United States (3:07.47) ahead of Jamaica (3:08.24) and Great Britain (3:09.84).
Botswana closes the world record in the men’s 4×400
Finally, highlight the sensational time trial of the men’s 4×400 from Botswana, which unleashed the madness of his countrymen. The current world champions, led by Olympic champion Letsile Tebogo and Tokyo individual world champion Busang Kebinatshipithey won with the third best record in history (2:54.47)only surpassed by the world record (2:54.29) of the United States, which dates back to 1993, and the 2:54.43 of the American quartet in the final of the Paris 2024 Games.
South Africa was silver with 2:55.07 and Australia (2:55.20) completed a legendary podium. And all this with the American giant’s four-year-olds watching these World Relays on television after the controversial decision of their federation not to present them to these championships…
