The USA Track & Field team will not compete in the men’s or women’s 4×400m team events at the 2026 World Athletics Relays. The event is scheduled at the National Stadium in Gaborone, Botswana, on May 2 and 3.
While the American team is set to compete in the mixed 4×100, mixed 4×400, men’s 4×100, and women’s 4×100 relay events, the USATF will not send any team in the 4×400 relay events. The decision was made due to the absence of elite players and the financial cost of sending B or C-level teams. Multiple top-level athletes have withdrawn from the event, including Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, who recently announced her pregnancy.
McLaughlin-Levrone helped the American squad dominate the event at the 2024 Paris Olympics and the 2025 World Championships in Tokyo. The USATF Chief Content and Communications Officer, Jay Holder, said that sending B or C-level teams to Botswana would cost a lot of money, which could be used to help them win bigger titles in 2027-28.
“It is difficult for us to find top-tier US athletes who want to go,” Holder said. “A lot of our A-team athletes have expressed that they are not interested in competing in this event. And then the financial costs of sending B or even C teams to Botswana are really significant.”
“We just feel like there’s potentially a better use of resources for programming for those relay teams that we can drive those funds towards for our medal goals for 2027 and 2028,” he added. “We can set up pretty highly competitive relays at other meets, domestically — and that’s one of the things the USATF Tour helps us do — for much less cost and we’ll probably get a higher likelihood of athletes who are going to make up those [World Championship and Olympic] teams that want to go.”
The 2026 World Athletics Relays will serve as a qualifying event for the 2026 World Athletics Ultimate Championships and 2027 World Ultimate Championships.
2026 Relay Competition Schedule for USA Track & Field Team
The USA Track & Field team will compete in multiple relay events throughout the 2026 season under the “One Team” philosophy. The program prioritizes chemistry between players who will compete in the relay events at the 2027 World Athletics Championships in Beijing and the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
The schedule of the USA relay squads in the 2026 season is as follows:
- World Indoor Championships – March 20
Relays: Mixed 4x400m, Women’s 4x400m, Men’s 4x400m - Florida Relays – April 4
Relays: Mixed 4x100m - Tom Jones Memorial – April 18
Relays: Mixed 4x100m - World Relays – May 2–3
Relays: Mixed 4x100m, Mixed 4x400m, Men’s and Women’s 4x100m - World Athletics U20 Championships – August 5–9
Relays: Men’s, Women’s, and Mixed 4x100m and 4x400m - World Athletics Ultimate Championships – September 11
Relays: Mixed 4x100m, Mixed 4x400m
Read also:
College Sports Network has you covered with the latest news, analysis, insights, and trending stories in tennis, college football, men’s college basketball, women’s college basketball, and college baseball!
