The preliminary round was highly competitive. In the first heat USA was able to hold off a hard charging team from India setting the Asian Record. The top 4 from that heat were the top 4 qualifiers.
In the final, USA's bronze medalist Quincy Hall was out fast, making up the 3 turn stagger distance on GBR's Alex Haydock-Wilson. Inside of Hall, France Ludvy Vaillant, Jamaica Rusheen McDonald and India Muhammed Anas were all running well. USA exchanged first to Vernon Norwood. Jamaica was next, but Roshawn Clarke did shuffle step that delayed his start, evening the chase group and letting Norwood have a bigger advantage. After the break, Gilles Biron brought France into second place, closing down to 5 metres by the head of the strightaway. From there, Norwood opened up another 3 metres before handing off to Justin Robinson. France was able to make a clean handoff to David Sombé and GBR's Charlie Dobson was able to pass to Lewis Davey unobstructed, but Botswana's veteran Baboloki Thebe came into the passing zone inside of Jamaica, while Laone Ditshetelo was waiting outside of Jamaica. Thebe cut through the middle of Jamaica's handoff from Clarke to Zandrion Barnes, then after handing off awkwardly, Thebe tripped making India's Muhammed Ajmal Variyathodi have to jump to hurdle Thebe. Botswana would get disqualified for interference after the race, but Jamaica and India were disadvantaged and Botswana was still on the track. GBR got ahead of France down the backstretch, with Botswana ahead of Jamaica. Sombé went round the outside to pass Dobson, Ditshetelo then passed on the inside. By gain being on the inside, Ditshetelo had to slow to pass behind GBR, but he still had to cut across two lanes to hand off. USA handed off clean to Rai Benjamin still 8 metres ahead of the field. France's Téo Andant got out with a 3 metre advantage on GBR's Rio Mitcham. Jamaica's Antonio Watson was another 3 metres down to GBR, with Botswana's Leungo Scotch nagging him on the inside. Down the backstretch, Watson made up those 3 metres, pulling even with Mitcham, but Mitcham held him to the outside entering the final turn. Watson dropped back for one more run at it coming off the turn, but instead Mitcham came off the turn sprinting after Andant. Up front Benjamin finished 10 metres up on France while GBR closed to 2 metres behind at the finish.
Records
Before the competition, records were as follows:[2]
The original standard to qualify automatically for entry was to finish in the first 12 at the 2023 World Athletics Relays, completed by 4 top lists' teams;[4] with the postponement of the World Relays event due to ongoing pandemic conditions in the host city of Guangzhou, this was changed to the top eight teams from the 2022 World Athletics Championship, plus the next eight best international teams, based on performances in official competitions between 31 July 2022 and 20 July 2023.[5]
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