The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Chief Sports Editor

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

ALTHOUGH The Bahamas didn’t have any participation in the World Relays over the weekend, Bahamas Association of Athletic Associations’ president Drumeco Archer was confident that the country will have some representation at the World Championships.

The World Relays, held in Guangzhou, China, was a qualifier for relay teams for the World Championships, scheduled for Tokyo, Japan, September 13-21.

Archer said the only reason The Bahamas didn’t send a team was because of the unavailability of the top athletes in the country to compete.

“We will be sending teams to meets within the area, whether that’s in Florida or in the region and we can get our teams qualified,” Archer said.

“By then, athletes will have returned home from school and we will have more legs. We just simply didn’t have the ammunition to take to China. So we’re looking at alternative competition as we speak.”

Without the deep pool of athletes to select from, like the other nations who participated, Archer said it didn’t make sense sending teams that would not have been competitive in the first place.

He noted that an injury to national record holder Steven Gardiner a week ago in Miami, Florida limited the pool for both the mixed relay and the men’s 4 x 400m relay team. “We just didn’t have sufficient legs to make a full team,” he said. “But we will have athletes who will compete in individual events and they will prove to be quite successful.

“But at this junction, in terms of numbers, we just don’t have the athletes available for us to have taken a tram to hina that would have been competitive.”

The top eight teams to advance to the final in both the men and women 4 x 00 and 4 x 400m as well as the mixed 4 x 400m relays automatically earned a berth at the World Championship.

Archer said there are some of the top athletes who are injured and would not have been available to compete, so they didn’t want to put any emphasis on taking a team that was not going to be competitive.

But 3ith the Bahamas securing the bid to host the 2028 World Relays, Archer said it has nothing to do with whether or not the Bahamas participated this year in China.

Team Bahamas and the organizing committee for the hosting of the World Relays should be treated separately,” he stated. “We have obli=gation as the federation to produce the best team and our resources just would not have allowed us to send a team that may not have performed at the h=ighest level at these relays.”\

As for the hosting of the World Relays in 2028, Archer said th4e focus by the organizing committee or the Local Organizing Committee,are still pushing forward in bringing the World Relays back to the Bahamas.

World Athletics gave birth to the World Relays here in the Bahamas at the Thomas A. Robinson National Stadium in 2014 and it remained here in 2025 and 2017.

However, the next two editions took place in Yokohama, Japan in 2019 and Chorzow, Poland in 2021. It returned to the Bahamas in 2024.

But this year, World Athletics took it to Guangzhou, China. The Bahamas put in a bid for the two editions, but World Athletics offered it to Gaborone, Botswana for 2026 and will bring it back to the Bahamas in 2028.

It’s important to note that the 2028 edition of the World Relays will serve as a qualifier for the teams for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, California.

World Athletics hope to introduce the mixed 4 x 100m relay to the games, while the event will be added to the calendar for the World Championships in Tokyo.

Archer was unable to say which relay teams the Bahamas will be aiming to qualify for at this year’s World Championships, the window closes on August 24th.