The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

LAST year, Switzerland fell short in the bid for their women’s 4 x 100 metre relay team to qualify for the IAAF World Championships. This year, they are back for the IAAF/BTC World Relays Bahamas 2015 and their goal is to try and get both the men’s and women’s relay teams qualified for the 2016 Olympic Games.

Like the top eight countries who qualified for the World Championships in August as a result of making the final at the inaugural relays last year, the top eight teams in both the 4 x 100 and 4 x 400 relays this weekend at the Thomas A Robinson National Stadium will book their tickets to the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

At the team’s practice yesterday, Laurent Mauwly, head coach for both Switzerland men and women 4 x 100 relay teams, said it was disappointing for their women’s 4 x 100 team last year. They just missed the final cut, finishing in ninth place overall in the preliminaries, and had to settle for third place in the B final in 43.55 seconds with the team of Michelle Cueni, Marisa Lavanchy, Mujinga Kambundji and Lea Sprunger.

“The field is bigger this year, so after we just missed it last year, our goal is to reach the final,” Mauwly said. “We were ranked number nine last year in the world, so we feel we have a very good chance of doing very well here this year.”

This time around, Switzerland will be here with a mixture of returning and new competitors on the team as Kambundji, Lavanchy and Sprunger will be joined by Sarah Atcho, Fanette Humair and Salome Kora.

“All of our athletes have ran at the European Championships, so they are all fit and ready to compete,” Mauwly said.

Their men’s 4 x 100 team will comprise of Mark Ujakpor, Rolf Malcolm Fongue, Steven Gugerli, Pascal Mancini, Reto Schenkel, Suganthan Somasundaram and Alex Wilson.

“The field is good in the men’s division, so I think it will be difficult, but our goal is to reach the finals because we would like to qualify now directly for the Olympics,” Mauwly said.

The Swiss team arrived in town on Sunday and Mauwly said they have been getting acclimatised to the warm weather. But if there is one concern, it’s the fact that the Games Village at the Atlantis resort is much too big and there is much more distraction than they experienced last year when they stayed at Breezes Superclubs.

“But I guess when all of the other countries are in, it should be much better, especially when we go to the dining room to eat,” he said.

Switzerland will also be competing in both the men and women 4 x 200 relays with basically the same athletes as those entered in the 4 x 100.

The men’s 4 x 100 and the women’s 4 x 200 will be on Saturday, while the women’s 4 x 100 and the men’s 4 x 200 will be contested on Sunday.