PARIS, France — Olympic debutant Reheem Hayles says that efforts to do well with the Jamaican team in the 400m mixed relay have been further fuelled by the nation’s disappointing failure to make the qualifying grade in the men’s 4x400m event.

This year is only the second time that the recently introduced event has been staged at the Games, with heats on the opening day of track and field athletics on Friday and the final the following day.

Hayles was part of the attempts to achieve the time needed to make the male 4x400m event in Paris, and having placed fourth in the national trials at the end of June he was always expecting to be an active part of the squad that will contest the mixed heats.

They feature two men and two women, and the 23-year-old relay specialist — a part of the winning team on four of the six four-man events he has contested this year — told the
Jamaica Observer after a training session at Complexe Sportif de L’ile des Vannes in northern Paris, “I’ve never really paid close attention to the mixed relays but the USA are sure to be a serious contenders.

“We will take it very seriously on the day but it’s kind of a ‘fun’ race, really.

“I was part of that effort to qualify us for the men’s 4x400m relay but we just didn’t quite do it.”

Some one-lap specialists were criticised for not taking part in the various stages of selecting the 16 nations which will take part in France but Hayles was not one of those.

“I’m new to Jamaica’s team and I am still getting to know most of them,” he said. “Everyone told me that, ‘You’ve come fourth at the trials so will definitely be in the relay team at the Olympics,’ but I didn’t want to rush the [elated] feeling until it was confirmed.

“When it was announced I was so happy about it and called my mom and told her that I’d be going to the Olympics, told my dad, and it was really a great feeling.

“I guess this is the best feeling of my life. It’s the biggest stage I’ve ever competed on as the Olympics are hard to top.

“My personal best is 44.81, which I ran last year, but I feel there is much more to come.”

Explaining the training necessary for the event he continued, “The only thing you can do as a squad is practise baton exchanges; the rest of the time it’s mostly normal 400m training, efforts and reps.”

Jamaica’s line-up and order of competing is unlikely to be revealed until the day of competition, but since March 2022 the order has been designated as being man-woman-man-woman, as per World Athletics rules.

Poland (gold), the Dominican Republic (silver) and the USA (bronze) took the three medals at the inaugural staging of the event in Tokyo 2020, held a year later due to the COVID-19-induced delay in staging the Games.