3 May 2015

It was a successful first night at the World Relays for Great Britain and Northern Ireland’s 4x400m squads.

Both the men’s and women’s quartets secured their passages into Sunday’s night finals. Qualification for Rio will be guaranteed providing the races are completed.

Eilidh Child (coach: Malcolm Arnold), Anyika Onuora (Rana Reider), Shana Cox (George Williams) and Seren Bundy-Davies (Stephen Ball) finished second behind Jamaica in heat two recording a time of 3:28.51.

“Delighted,” said Child.

“We just wanted to secure that qualification spot as comfortable as possible and to get that automatic spot which we did.”

“I was just trying to do my part on second leg and just handing over to Shana,” said Onuora. “It was good, it was amazing to be out here. The crowd and the track are just fantastic. It’s nice to be back in the Bahamas at such a fun event.”

The men’s advancement was a slightly more nail biting affair with qualification courtesy of a fastest losers spot. A time of 3:03.28 for Conrad Williams (Linford Christie), Delano Williams (Neil Harrison), Jack Green (Loren Seagrave) and George Caddick (Clyde Hart) sealed the deal.

Conrad Williams said: “Jack and I were watching the heats trying to calculate the best way to qualify and make sure we got the job done.

“Tomorrow is literally eye balls out. George came in and did a fantastic job.

“We knew we had to be in the top two for automatic and it was nail biting stuff. We are looking forward to tomorrow now.”

There was disappointment for the men’s 4x100m, who finished fourth in heat two with 38.79, which was only enough for a place in the B final. Andy Robertson (Dan Cossins), Danny Talbot (Cossins), James Ellington (Christie) and Richard Kilty (Christie) won the B race in a time of 38.67. There will be future opportunities for the squad to qualify for Rio 2016.

“It gives us a benchmark in terms of where we are at and clearly we are down from where we want to be,” reflected Talbot.

“We have always got to try and be positive, we have all raced together before but this is a new order. It’s unfortunate that we didn’t run as well as what we can do but we have got to move forward and not be too negative on this.”

Highlights from day one of the World Relays will be available on the BBC Red Button from Sunday morning 10.10am.