The Belgian Tornados will need to travel to the Bahamas in 2024 to qualify for the next Olympics, in Paris.
Sebastian Coe, president of the international athletics federation, World Athletics, announced at a press conference on Wednesday that the World Relays, which will serve as a qualifying event for the Olympics, will be held in the Caribbean nation.
The decision comes on the heels of the announcement in October that this edition, which was due to take place next May in Guangzhou, China, would be postponed until April or May 2025, due to the constraints linked to the health crisis.
The Bahamas will thus get “their” event back after having hosted the first three editions in 2014, 2015 and 2017. The international athletics federation then awarded the World Relays to Japan in 2019 (Yokohama) and to Poland last year (Chorzow).
Belgium's relay runners won bronze at this year's World Championships in Eugene, Oregon (USA) in July, behind the USA and Jamaica.
Three years before that, in 2019, they also won bronze - in Doha.
In 29 relay finals in all competitions, they have been on the podium on 15 occasions.
