4 Team Canada storylines to watch at this weekend’s World Athletics Relays

We are two days away from the start of the 2024 World Athletics Relays Championships from Nassau, Bahamas, on May 4-5. Athletics Canada has sent a loaded team of 27 athletes, comprised of world champions, Olympic champions and the best up-and-coming talent who will showcase their skills and compete for spots at the Paris Olympic Games.

Canada has five relay teams to compete across the five race disciplines, ranging from the men’s and women’s 4x100m relay to the 4x400m and mixed 4x400m relays. Stakes are high, with the 2024 World Relays serving as a direct qualifying event for the Paris Olympics. The top 14 teams in each discipline will qualify based on their times. Each event will have heats and a final, and the top two teams from each heat will advance.

Here are a few Canadian storylines to watch.

1. Will the Canadian men’s 4x100m team bounce back?

In 2022, the Canadian quartet of Aaron Brown, Andre De Grasse, Brendon Rodney and Jerome Blake were on top of the world, winning Canada’s first world championship gold medal in the men’s sprint relay since 1997. Watching De Grasse snatch the baton from Rodney on the anchor leg, surging past American sprinter Marvin Bracy in the final 50 metres was a moment many Canadian track and field fans will never forget.

Just 12 months later in Budapest, the quartet faltered in their defense of the title, failing to advance beyond the heats at the 2023 World Championships and watching the Americans win gold from the stands. The Canadian team not being in the final was one of the biggest stories of the championships, especially when relay head coach Glenroy Gilbert rested De Grasse in the heats so he could focus on the men’s 200m final, scheduled the same night. Brown, Rodney and Blake walked off the track in disbelief, trying to understand what happened, but all fingers pointed to what would’ve happened had De Grasse run.

In sports, it isn’t easy to win, but defending your title can be even more daunting. Losing teams get hungrier, while the champions get a taste of success. The Canadian men’s 4x100m team experienced the high of winning and the low of defeat. What separates a great team from a good team is their ability to handle adversity and rise back to the top. Budapest was a setback, but the upcoming World Relays in Paris could serve as the team’s platform to reaffirm their dominance as one of the top sprint nations in the world.

2. What to expect from Christopher Morales Williams’s relay debut

One of the most promising talents in Canadian track and field, Christopher Morales Williams, is set to make his debut on the senior stage with the Canadian men’s 4x400m team at World Relays. Morales Williams currently holds the seventh-fastest 400m time globally this season, with a mark of 44.49 seconds (a world indoor best).

As the reigning NCAA 400m champion indoors, Morales Williams has kicked off the outdoor season with a bang, clocking 44.91 at the Florida Relays on April 13, marking his first sub-45 performance (outdoors). At just 19, Morales Williams is poised to anchor the Canadian team, pitting him against the world’s top 400m runners on the final leg. Regardless of the Canadian men’s 4x400m team’s performance, the invaluable championship-level exposure will help and test Morales Williams as he gears up for the ultimate challenge in Paris.

As he’s still young, there should be no set expectations of him at World Relays. Let’s see what the young star can do. He will lead a formidable young Canadian squad featuring Myles Misener-Daley, Marco Arop, Will Floyd and Ibrahim Ayorinde, aiming to secure an Olympic berth for the men’s 4x400m.

3. Can Canada qualify a men’s 4x400m team for the first time in 32 years?

If you’re reading this and you are under 30, first, thank you–and second, you might be surprised to hear about the Canadian men’s 4x400m team. Yes, Canada does have one, but they’ve been absent from the Olympic Games for the last three decades. The quartet of Mark Jackson, Anthony Wilson, Fred Williams and the late Mark Graham (who would all now be over 50), were the last athletes to represent Canada in the men’s 4x400m at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona.

If you think 32 years is a long drought, don’t ask about the Canadian men’s 4x400m record, set at the Montreal Olympics in 1976 (long before the days of super spikes). You get the gist—it’s been a while since Canada has had a good men’s 4x400m team, but there’s a new generation of sprinters here to change that, starting with 19-year-old phenom Morales Williams.

The world knows Arop for the 800m event and his ability to use his physique and power to surge to the front of the field, but he doesn’t have much experience in the 4x400m. A 400m personal best of 46.10 seconds is good for an 800m runner, but a tad slow for the relay. For the Canadian team to get the most out of Arop, he would need to take the baton on the second leg (the leg where runners are allowed to cut in for their assigned lanes), using his body to power Canada to the front and hold the position.

Like Morales Williams, Misener-Daley and Ayorinde are also young and don’t have senior national team experience. Ayorinde represented Canada at the 2024 World Indoors Championships in the 400m, but did not get out of the heats. Misener-Daley had an illustrious high school career, becoming the first Canadian 400m sprinter to run sub-46 (45.78) in 2019, but then he went a few years in college without beating his younger mark. He had a breakthrough season in 2023, lowering his best to 45.25 and going sub-46 in eight of his 10 400m races. If Misener-Daley and Ayorinde can be consistent at World Relays, Canada might finally have a 4x400m team in Paris.

4. What’s the potential of the women’s 4x400m team?

Fourth at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, fourth at the 2023 World Championships in Budapest, and fourth at the 2022 World Championships in Eugene, Ore.—this team has been through it. They’re good, but not good enough, and that’s been their narrative over the last three major championships. Despite changes in athletes (and order), the results have remained the same, with the team battling contention heading into the final leg but missing the podium.

The depth of the women’s 4x400m team is great, and outside of the American and Dutch powerhouses, Canada could genuinely contend for bronze here, or in Paris. However, like many relay teams, they face the challenge of finding chemistry and the right order. Kyra Constantine has been present on all three championship teams and has run the anchor leg. While Constantine is currently the top female 400m runner nationally, she has struggled with consistency over the past couple of seasons. The good news is that she has shown strong signs of improvement to start her 2024 season, winning two of her three races and running her fastest times in nearly three years. This is a positive sign for the Canadian women’s 4x400m team, as they aim for their third consecutive Olympic berth.

How to watch

You can stream the 2024 World Athletics Relays live from Nassau, Bahamas, on CBCSports.ca, the CBC Sports App, or CBC Gem. Coverage will begin on Saturday, May 4 at 7 p.m. ET with the mixed 4x400m relay Olympic qualifying round. The first qualifying rounds for all five events will run on May 4, with the finals scheduled for the evening of May 5.