RWANDA WILL field a four-man team in the first edition of the IAAF World Relays, which will be held from May 24-25 in Nassau, the capital of The Bahamas. Rwanda Athletics Federation’s technical director Jean Pierre Ndacyayisenga told Saturday Sport yesterday, “We are holding trials on Saturday (today) to pick the four athletes.” He said currently, they have two good runners in the relays and the trials will be aimed at identifying the other two. Currently, 800m runners Timothy Bagina and Emmanuel Ntakiyimana are favourites to make it into the 4x800m national team. Ntakiyimana has a personal best of 1:49:37, while Bagina clocks 1:49:94 in 800m. Close to 800 athletes from around the world are expected to compete at the first edition of the IAAF World Relays. Preliminary entry figures indicate that 48 member federations will take part in Nassau. Initial entries of 762 athletes – 440 men and 322 women – have been received by the IAAF as 90 men’s teams and 64 women’s teams will be spread across the five events. The 4x100m, 4x200m, 4x400m, 4x800m and 4x1500m will all be contested at the inaugural World Relays. The top eight teams in both the men’s and women’s 4x100m and 4x400m will automatically qualify for the 2015 IAAF World Championships in Beijing. In addition, the top eight teams in each event will be awarded prize money with the gold medalists taking home no less than $50,000. In the event that a team breaks a world record in Nassau, an additional bonus of $50,000 will be awarded.
