Second leg runner Rajesh Ramesh pulled out due to cramps because the Indian males’s 4x400m team failed to finish its heat race on the World Athletics Relays in Nassau on May 5, throughout spherical considered one of Paris Olympics {qualifications}.
The Indian quartet of Muhammed Anas Yahiya, Rajesh Ramesh, Muhammed Ajmal and Amoj Jacob hoped to e-book a Paris ticket with a top-two finish in heat quantity 4, however in a utter heartbreak, Ramesh left the race halfway whereas clutching his left leg. Anas had already run the primary leg.
“The men’s 4x400m relay team had a good start. Muhammad Anas clocked 45.93 seconds in the first leg, but the second runner — Rajesh Ramesh — fell down due to cramps in leg muscles at the first bend,” Athletics Federation of India (AFI) stated in a press release.
Ramesh had run the combined 4x400m race three hours earlier than the lads’s occasion.
India can have one other likelihood on May 6 throughout spherical two of Olympics {qualifications} the place all the opposite groups which completed outdoors top-two of their respective heats on Sunday will strive their luck for an additional shot on the Paris Games. The groups are anticipated to be divided into three heats and prime two from every of them will e-book Paris ticket.
The identical quartet had set an Asian report of two minutes and 59.05 seconds on the 2023 Budapest World Championships. India had failed to get previous the heat spherical within the Tokyo Olympics.
India additionally failed to make the Paris Olympics lower in girls’s 4x400m and combined 4x400m relays on the primary day of {qualifications}. Both the Indian groups of combined 4x400m and ladies’s 4x400m can have to watch for Monday’s spherical two of Olympics {qualifications}.
In the combined 4x400m occasion, the Indian quartet of Rajesh Ramesh, Rupal Chaudhary, Avinash Krishna Kumar and Jyothika Sri Dandi ran a poor race to finish sixth in heat quantity two with a time of three minutes and 20.36 seconds.
Later, the Indian quartet of Vithya Ramraj, M R Poovamma, Jyothika Sri Dandi and Subha Venkatesan completed fifth in heat primary with a time of three minutes and 29.74 seconds.
The prime two groups in every of the 4 heat races right here qualify for the Paris Olympics to be held from July 16 to August 11. The remaining groups in all of the heats will compete once more on Monday in one other qualification spherical for an additional six Paris Olympics spots.
The format is similar for all of the 5 relay races — males’s and ladies’s 4x100m, males’s and ladies’s 4x400m and combined 4x400m — being held right here.