Beahan Selected for World Relay Championships

Brianna Beahan has received a call-up for the Australian team set to tackle next month’s IAAF World Relay Championships in Japan.

Selection marks another representative feather in the 27 year-old’s cap after she donned the green and gold for the Australian Flame at last year’s Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast.

The hurdler will compete in the mixed-hurdles event which will see her running with Celeste Mucci, Nicholas Hough and Nicholas Andrews.

Mucci and Hough were both members of the Commonwealth Games team alongside Beahan in 2018, with Hough earning an individual bronze medal in the men’s 110m hurdles.

The IAAF World Relay Championships in Yokohama take on a specific importance for nations competing, with the event doubling as a selection pathway for this year’s World Championships in Doha, which in turn will form a crucial part of the selection puzzle for next year’s Olympic Games in Tokyo.

At Olympic and World Championship level, there are four relay events run, with two for men and two for women. This includes a men’s and women’s 4x100m relay and a men’s and women’s 4x400m relay.

The IAAF selection criteria details are:

• For the 4x100m and 4x400m relays in Yokohama, the top-10 teams automatically qualify for Doha. The remaining six positions are based on IAAF rankings list from the qualifying period (7 March 2018 to 6 Sept 2019).

• For the Tokyo Olympics, only the top-8 automatically qualify from Doha, with the remaining eight by rankings (average of two best times in the period 1 Jan 2019 to 29 June 2020).

With the average of two best times factored, relay teams will need to post good times across both heats and finals to boost their selection chances outside of the automatic qualifications.