Antalya, Turkey, April 22, 2024: Teams from Japan, China and India are among the 22 to have secured automatic qualification for the marathon race walk mixed relay at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games following their performances at the World Athletics Race Walking Team Championships Antalya 24 on Sunday, April 21.
The marathon race walk mixed relay makes its Olympic debut in Paris in August, with WRW Antalya 24 the main qualifying event for the new discipline.
The relay involves teams of one man and one woman who complete the marathon distance (42.195km) in four legs of approximately equal distance. Each athlete races two legs, alternating man, woman, man, woman.
A total of 22 teams in Antalya secured spots for Paris. Up to five of the first 22 teams could be a second team from the same country, and Japan, Spain, Australia, China and Colombia each qualified two teams. India qualified one team.
Italy 2 (Francesco Fortunato and Valentina Trapletti) won the gold medal in 2:56:45, followed by Japan (Koki Ikeda and Kumiko Okada) at 2:57:04 and Spain (Alvaro Martin and Laura Garcia-Caro) in 2:57:47.
Three additional teams that missed out in Antalya still have the chance to qualify for Paris via their placing in the marathon race walk mixed relay top performance list running from December 31, 2022 to June 30, 2024.
Teams qualified in Antalya:
1 Italy
2 Japan*
3 Spain*
4 Mexico
5 Brazil
6 Australia*
7 Spain
8 Ukraine
9 France
10 China*
11 China
12 Colombia*
13 Germany
14 Colombia
15 Australia
16 Japan
17 India
18 Turkiye
19 Slovak Republic
20 Poland
21 Canada
22 Hungary
*qualified two teams
At the Olympic Games in Paris, the marathon race walk mixed relay will be held on Wednesday, August 7, six days after the individual 20km race walking events launch the athletics programme on Thursday, August 1.