The Paris Games will be the first in which the mixed team relay will be held
Spanish athletes have shown their reservations through their social networks
marchers like Diego García Carrera or Paul McGrath and coaches such as José Antonio Quintana criticize the decision announced this Saturday by World Athletics and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to organize a new mixed team relay event for the Paris 2024 Games that will replace the 35-kilometre walk.
The Marathon Race Walk mixed relay will feature 25 teams, each consisting of one male and one female athlete, which will complete the distance of the marathon (42.195 km) in four sections of approximately the same distance. Each athlete will complete two sections of just over 10 kilometers each, alternating male, female, male, female.
“Making a decision like this a little over a year before the Olympic Games is a real botch. Half of my specialty colleagues (long-distance specialists) are outside of Paris. Things cannot be done that way. The march deserves RESPECT“, Diego García Carrera, bronze medalist in the last European Championship in Munich over 20 kilometers, declared on Twitter.
Paul McGrath, winner of bronze in the 10-kilometer walk at the U-20 World Cups, also showed his discomfort on social networks. “He is embarrassing and disrespectful to our discipline. They are destroying the dreams of hundreds of marchers and the worst thing is that they know it.”
José Antonio Quintana was emphatic. “Summary: shameful and sloppy. We may like it or not but the indisputable thing is that the deadlines are NOT met and today there are NO regulations.”
Paquillo Fernández from Granada, now retired, won the running silver medal at the 2004 Athens Games and was runner-up three times in the world. “Laughter and a lack of respect for the World March,” he said.
The new Olympic event, the Ekiden, will take place on the same course as the individual walk events, at the foot of the Eiffel Tower in central Paris, and will take about three hours to complete. The requirement that each athlete complete two stages will add an endurance component to the race.
The The team qualification path for this new event will be published shortly by World Athletics and the International Olympic Committee.