How the World Relays Repechage Works

I’ve been asked this question a lot, so it’s best I write them down.

16 teams will qualify for both Men’s & Women’s 4x100m and 4x400m relay, as well as the Mixed 4×400. The Olympics or World Championships will have 2 semi-finals using a Top 3 (Q), and next 2 fastest times (q) for advancement to the Finals.

There are 3 ways to make the 16 team cut:

1. Top 8 Finalist at the World Athletics Relays (Bahamas 24; Guangzhou China 25; Gaborone, Botswana 2026; Nassau, Bahamas 2027)
2. The next 6 from the Repechage (next day)
3. The last 2 will be chosen from the World rankings.

World Athletics Relays (Bahamas 24 branded)

Top 8 Finalists

There are 4 heats with 8 teams, so as long as you finish top 2, you are secured a spot for the Finals, as well as the “Major” later that year (i.e. Paris 2024, World Champs in Tokyo)

Once you make the Finals, then getting a top 3 medal is obviously the next priority!

Next 6 from the Repechage

There are now 3 heats with 8 teams, so as long as you finish top 2, you are secured a spot for the “Major”.

It’s common to see celebrations when they finished second in this round! Liberia’s Men’s 4×100 with Joseph Fahnbulleh finishing 2nd (and 6th on 6) in the Repechage comes to mind!

So go hard, or go home!

Final 2 chosen from the World rankings

This is harder than it looks. Even the Men’s Jamaican team didn’t secure a top 16 for for Paris 2024! Not having your best team at World Relays didn’t help, either.

If a Team or Country declines, then you can move up in the ranking.

Individual Events (Paris 2024)

Here is a chart from World Athletics.

In the 200m example above, 18 spots are based on finish (Q), with the remaining 6 (q) spots determined by 30 athletes (48 – 18 = 30). This gives every athlete a chance to run twice. This also gives the Olympics to fill in the morning session “gaps”.

I attended 2 morning sessions in Paris, and I have to admit, the races were thoroughly entertaining. The athletes probably complained, but hey, who gets to say they ran twice at the Olympics?

How many from the Repechage round actually made the finals? That is, run 4 times? (QF, Repechage, Semi-Finals, Finals) Remember, the automatic qualifiers (the Q) had a rest day, while the repechage runners had to run hard the very next day!

The answer is 2.

One is the famous USA hurdler Freddie Crittenden who purposely ran the heats easy (too easy? fair game? he just finished… rules are rules!) because he knew he was guaranteed a spot for the repechage, thus running the repchage race as the actual quarter-finals! Top 2 or go home!

Will we see Repechage in LA 2028? Time will tell.