Mixed 4x100m team qualify for Budapest World Ultimate Championships
After missing out on the relay events at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, Japan, last year, Team Nigeria, at the weekend, qualified to present at least three relay teams when the World Athletics flagship event makes its 21st stop in Beijing in 2027.

Team Nigeria made that possible with the qualifications of the mixed 4x100m and 4x400m relay teams, as well as the women’s 4x100m team.

The team also secured an automatic ticket for the World Ultimate Championships later this year in Budapest, finishing sixth in the Mixed 4x100m. The Nigerian quartet of Favour Ashe, Jennifer Chukwuka-Obi, Chidera Ezeakor and Maria Thompson clocked a time of 42.03s.

Nigeria is the only African team with an automatic ticket in this event, qualifying for both the World Championships (2027), and this year’s Ultimate Championships in Hungary.
 
The mixed 4x400m relay team, led by reigning African Games 400m champion Chidi Okezie, alongside Nathaniel Ezekiel, Taiwo Mary Kudoro, and Patience Okon George, ran a new season’s best of 3:12.88 to secure qualification.
 
The women’s 4x100m team, anchored by teenage sensation Miracle Ezechukwu, atoned for bungling their baton exchange on day one and took full advantage of their second chance to qualify in an impressive 42.94, their fastest time since the Paris 2024 Olympics, when they ran 42.70.
 
The men’s and women’s 4x400m teams and the men’s 4x100m team still have a chance to qualify when the qualification window for the Beijing 2027 World Championships officially opens later this year.
 
The women’s 4x100m team dropped the baton on Saturday, but they can still qualify to fill up the remaining four slots in each relay event.
 
With many of Nigeria’s top stars missing in Gaborone, and with proper coordination by the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) in the forthcoming events, it will be easy for Nigeria to pick one of the four available tickets on offer in each relay event.
 
Stakeholders are waiting to see how fast a men’s 4x100m relay team of Ashe, Kanyinsola Ajayi, Israel Okon, and Ushoritse Itshekiri or Udodi Onwuzurike can go, or a women’s 4x400m team of Ella Onojuvwevwo, Chioma Nwachukwu, Esther Joseph, and Patience Okon George, as well as the men’s 4x400m quartet of Samuel Ogazi, who ran 44.02 at the weekend to break Innocent Egbunike’s 44.17 Nigerian record set way back in 1987, Nathaniel Ezekiel, Edidiong Udo, and Chidi Okezie.
 
Meanwhile, the mixed 4x100m team is through to the Ultimate Championship, which is making its debut in Budapest, Hungary, this September. The team finished sixth, the final qualifying position, after Great Britain and the Netherlands failed to finish due to baton exchange problems.
 
Yesterday’s finals, meanwhile, decided prize money and preferential lane seeding positions for the World Championships.
 
The mixed relay events in Gaborone also serve as the main qualification route for the World Athletics Ultimate Championship Budapest 26. The top six teams in each of the mixed 4x100m and mixed 4x400m finals yesterday automatically qualified for Budapest.