Yomi Omogbeja (25/07/2004)

Seven African countries have qualified for the relay competitions at the XXVIII Olympics games in Athens next month.

The countries are listed among the 80 teams that made it after the expiration of the qualification period.

African athletics power Nigeria qualify for all the four relay events while Ghana, South Africa, Botswana, Cameroon, Senegal and Africa championships surprise team Zimbabwe, are each listed for one event.

According to International Amateur Athletics Federation official statistics released this weekend in Monte Carlo, the list include the top 20 teams in the world who have qualified at the expiry of the qualification period.

The top 16 national teams in each of the four relay events -men's and women's 4x100m & 4x400m - qualifies for the events, with the last four teams on standby.

Best of two

The Teams qualified in each Relay Event on the basis of the average of their best 2 performances achieved in competitions sanctioned by IAAF or by the Area Associations and recorded during the period of 1 January 2003 to 21 July 2004.

In the Men's 4x100m, Nigeria was listed in the 8th position with an average time of 38.64seconds and Ghana in 15th position with 38.76seconds.

Only Nigeria, listed in the 13th position with 43.65seconds, was in the women category.

In the Men's 4x400m: South Africa with an average time of 3:03:43secs; Botswana with 3:03:53secs; Nigeria with 3:03:57secs and Zimbabwe with 3:03:86secs were all listed in 14th , 15th, 16th and 20th positions respectively.

In the women's category, Africa has Cameroon with 3:28:24secs; Senegal with 3:28:89secs; and Nigeria with 3:29:30secs; all listed in the 10th , 14th and 16th positions respectively.

The full list of teams and their qualifying performances are now available on the IAAF website.