Canadian relay teams locked in for Paris
•The Canadian men’s 4 x 100 relay team finished second to the United States in the World Athletic Relays on Sunday.
Brendon Rodney, Aaron Brown, Jerome Blake and Andre De Grasse posted a time of 37.89 seconds behind the Americans in 37.40 in the final. Japan was third in 38.10.
The first 14 of 16 berths for each of the five Olympic relays in Paris were allocated in Nassau.
The Canadian men had already qualified Saturday by winning their heat and posting the third-fastest time.
The women’s 4 x 100 and 4 x 400 relay teams also raced in Sunday’s finals. They punched their tickets to Paris the previous day.
Toronto’s Alyssa Marsh, Kyra Constantine and Zoe Sherar and Aiyanna Stiverne of Laval, Que., placed third in the 4 x 400.
The group’s time was three minutes 27.17 behind the victorious United States in 3:21.70 and runner-up Poland in 3:24.71.
Constantine ran the third leg of the 4 x 400 in Tokyo where the Canadian women finished fourth and missed the podium by six-tenths of a second.
The women’s 4 x 100 team of Audrey Leduc of Gatineau, Que., Sade Mccreath of Ajax, Ont., Montreal’s Marieeloise Leclair and Toronto’s Crystal Emmanuel-Ahye were seventh Sunday.
Blake of Kelowna, B.C., Toronto’s Brown and Rodney and De Grasse of Markham, Ont., won a world championship in 2022 and Olympic silver in 2021.
They didn’t reach last year’s world championship final in Hungary, where De Grasse sat out the heats to save himself for the 200-metre final two hours later. Bolade Ajomale drew in to run the anchor leg.
Canada’s mixed and men’s 4 x 400 relay teams needed to finish in the top two in their qualifying heats Sunday to get to Paris, but fell short, finishing third and fifth, respectively