PARIS: The World Athletics Relays, scheduled to be held in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou in May 2023 have been postponed until 2025, track and field’s governing body announced Monday.

World Athletics said the decision was taken with the agreement of both the Guangzhou organising committee and the Chinese Athletics Association “due to the ongoing pandemic conditions.”

The postponement impacts the qualification system for the relay events at next year’s World Athletics Championships in Budapest.

“The World Athletics Competition Commission, upon approval of the Council, has revised the qualification system to include the top eight teams from the World Athletics Championships Oregon22 and the top eight teams from the performance lists,” World Athletics said in a statement.

The host of the 2024 World Athletics Relays is set to be awarded by the World Athletics Council at their meeting in Rome on Nov 30.

The world relays are not the first track and field event to have been postponed in China.

Published in Dawn, November 1st, 2022