Record-breaking Aussie relay team punches Paris ticket

Australian athletics is set to send a 4x100m women's relay team to an Olympic Games for the first time since Sydney 2000.

At the World Athletics Relays in The Bahamas on Sunday morning (AEST), an Australian team consisting of Ebony Lane, Bree Masters, Ella Connolly and national record holder Torrie Lewis finished in the top two of its heat, ensuring it will take on the world in Paris in August.

The team also broke the national 4x100m record it already owned, clocking 42.83 seconds.

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At the Sydney Track Classic in March, Lane, Masters, Connolly and Lewis had joined forces to shatter a national record that had stood for 24 years.

The record-breaking sprinters will line up again in The Bahamas on Monday morning (AEST), contesting the final.

When Wide World of Sports mentioned to Masters post-race that Australia would have a women's 4x100m team at an Olympic Games for the first time since 2000, she admitted she wasn't aware of that and was clearly rapt with the drought-breaking feat.

"That is very exciting," said the former beach sprinter and dancer.

"We've got a great crop of female sprinters in the country at the moment, so as much as tonight was a surprise when we heard we got second and qualified, I knew deep down that we could do it.

https://twitter.com/AthsAust/status/1786914510827381180

"We've got such a strong team and we've been practising together for almost three years now. So [it's been about] putting that all together, working hard with our personal coaches, working hard at our relay camps with our coach Cathy [Walsh] … and having trust and faith in each other that we can make those exchanges quick and run the best race we can."

The Australian men's 4x100m team, made up of Sebastian Sultana, Jacob Despard, Calab Law and Josh Azzopardi, failed to directly secure a place in the World Athletics Relays final, but will have another crack in round two of qualifying on Monday morning (AEST).

If the team finishes in the top two of its second-round heat, it will qualify for the final and the Paris Games.

The team stopped the clock at 38.50 seconds in the first round of qualifying, missing out on a top-two spot by just 0.004 of a second.

Australia was last represented by a men's 4x100m team at an Olympic Games at London 2012.