Women's Relay Breaks Record, Reaches European Championships Final

Portugal's women's 4x100-meter relay team has secured a spot in the European Athletics Championships final in Birmingham, setting a new national record in the process. In contrast, the men's team failed to advance past the heats.

The quartet of Lorène Bazolo, Tatjana Pinto, Beatriz Castelhano, and Arialis Martínez completed the race at Alexander Stadium in 43.06 seconds. This time not only earned them third place in their heat, behind Italy (42.22) and Great Britain and Northern Ireland (42.37), but also shattered their previous national record of 43.85 seconds, which was set by the same team at the Rome 2024 European Championships.

With the seventh-fastest overall time in the heats, the Portuguese team has already achieved Portugal's best-ever result in the women's 4x100-meter relay, surpassing the 11th-place finish at Budapest 1998. The final is scheduled for 9:48 PM tonight.

Lorène Bazolo expressed her satisfaction with the achievement, but her focus was already on the final. "We are happy; we got here together, and we want to focus on the final and do better, achieve a good result, even better than this record, which means a lot, but above all, it represents dedication, overcoming challenges, hard work, and our strength," the athlete told the Lusa agency.

Meanwhile, the men's team, comprising André Prazeres, Gabriel Maia, Delvis Santos, and Gerson Baldé, did not share the same fortune. Their time of 39.49 seconds placed them sixth in their heat and 12th overall, which was insufficient for qualification. Poland was the last team to secure a spot in the final, with a time of 39.17 seconds.

Delvis Santos, who had finished fifth in the 200-meter final the previous day, lamented the outcome but emphasized the importance of learning from mistakes. "We take a lesson from this because there's always room for more. There's no point in regretting it now; what matters is to learn from our mistakes here to improve in the future," he stated.

The Sporting sprinter added that the result fell short of expectations. "We have to pick ourselves up, move on to the next one, and run better. We have a young team with the capacity to do much better things. We came into the race with a time of 39.05 seconds, which would have been enough to reach the final, but these things happen in sports," he concluded.