China break men's 4x400m national record at World Athletics Relays

China's home runners set a new national record in the men's 4x400m in 3:01.87 at the World Athletics Relays in rain in Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong Province on Saturday.

The competition also serves as the main qualification for relay events at this year's World Athletics Championships in Tokyo in September and features six events including men's, women's and mixed 4x100m and 4x400m. The top 14 teams in each event (except for mixed 4x100m) will earn berths for Tokyo 2025.

According to the rules, the top 14 teams in men's and women's 4x100m, 4x400m and mixed 4x400m consist of eight spots booked Saturday and 6 spots Sunday. In each event, the top two teams in each of the four heats qualified for the finals and World Championships, with the remaining teams competing for six other spots per event in the second qualification round Sunday.

The Chinese squad for the men's 4x400m, composed of rookies Liang Baotang, Li Yiqing, Zhang Qining and Fu Haoran, finished second in Heat 1, breaking the national record, reaching the final and qualifying for Tokyo 2025.

"My mind was blank when I was running, just to do my best," said Fu, who caught up to second place by surpassing Bernat Erta of Spain in the fourth leg.

Mixed 4x100m is a newly-introduced event for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games. In the event's global debut, Canada finished first in qualification with a time of 40.90 seconds. The Chinese quartet of Huang Shuping, Kong Lingyao, Chen Jinfeng and Chen Guanfeng qualified for the final by clocking 41.30 seconds.

"It's interesting to mix and mingle boys and girls in 4X100m. We are really excited and happy for the introduction of the event," Chen said.

Veteran Xie Zhenye led Team China in men's 4x100m, and they clocked 38.30 seconds to finish third in Heat 4, only 0.005 second shy of Italy, who finished second in the heat. South Africa and Japan set a new world-leading mark with 37.84 seconds.

Drama unfolded in the women's 4x100m as China's third-leg runner Liang Xiaojing and fourth-leg runner Ge Manqi made a mistake in passing the baton, finishing sixth in the heat.

Elsewhere, the USA made a world-leading mark of 3:11.37 in the mixed 4x400m. Spain set a new women's 4x100m national record of 42.18 seconds.