Relay representation for NSWIS athletes

Athletics Australia have announced their six squads for the 2019 IAAF World Relay Championships to be held in Yokohama Japan on May 10 and 11.

Four athletes from the NSW Institute of Sport will represent Australia in relay teams at the event; Rohan Browning, Nick Hough, Tyler Gunn and Steve Solomon.

With the naming of squads in all four of the world championships/Olympics events Athletics Australia is confirming our aim to try and qualify teams for Doha and Tokyo. In recent years our men’s 4x100m and women’s 4x400m teams have been strong, but a highlight of the 2019 domestic season has been the improvement of depth in the women’s 100m/200m and men’s 400m, enabling us to form competitive squads. An example of this was the need for the men’s 4x400m squad to qualify for Yokohama and the commitment and determination by this squad at the Queensland Track Classic to qualify.

Qualification for global relay events is now more difficult. For the 2019 World Championships, the IAAF have trimmed the number of relay teams from 24 to 16 to line-up with the Olympic Games. As Yokohama offers a helpful pathway to qualify for Doha, so does Doha to qualify for Tokyo 2020. The details are:

For the 4x100m and 4x400m relays in Yokohama, the top-10 teams automatically qualify for Doha. The remaining six positions are based on IAAF rankings list from the qualifying period (7 March 2018 to 6 Sept 2019).

For the Tokyo Olympics, only the top-8 automatically qualify from Doha, with the remaining eight by rankings (average of two best times in the period 1 Jan 2019 to 29 June 2020).

So, for our teams the qualification starts here, and a good heat and final time can be important as that provides two times for future qualification by ranking.

Australia will also field teams in the two of the new events the Mixed Shuttle Hurdles and the Mixed 2x2x400m relay.

The NSWIS athletes that have been selected in the Australian Team are as follows:

• Rohan Browning – Men’s 4x100m
• Nick Hough – Mixed Hurdles Relay
• Tyler Gunn – Men’s 4x400m Relay
• Steve Solomon – Men’s 4x400m Relay