Canada made history on Sunday by clinching gold in the inaugural mixed 4x100m relay at the 2025 World Athletics Relays in Guangzhou, China. The quartet of Sade McCreath, Marie-Éloïse Leclair, Duan Asemota and Eliezer Adjibi delivered a flawless performance, clocking a season-best 40.30 seconds to outpace Jamaica (40.44s) and Great Britain (40.88s).
The mixed 4x100m relay made its global debut at this year’s World Athletics Relays, held at the Guangdong Olympic Stadium on May 10 and 11. The Canadian team’s triumph is particularly notable given the stiff competition. Jamaica’s team secured silver, while Great Britain took bronze. Pre-event favorites, the U.S., failed to qualify for the final due to a baton exchange error in the heats.
Canada’s winning relay lineup showcased depth across the board. McCreath exploded out of the blocks to set the tone, while Leclair, a national university record holder over 200m, extended the lead. Asemota, known for his strength on the curve, handed off cleanly to Adjibi, who brought it home. The team was awarded USD $40,000 for the top spot; while they won’t be competing at the Sept. 13-21 athletics worlds in Tokyo (the event will not be contested), it has been added to the Olympic program for 2028 in Los Angeles.
Canadian men’s 4 x 100m team takes bronze
Canada’s men’s and women’s 4x100m teams also secured their places at the 2025 World Athletics Championships with clutch performances on Saturday. The men’s team—Andre De Grasse, Aaron Brown, Brendon Rodney and Jerome Blake—punched their ticket to Tokyo on Saturday and followed with a gritty bronze in the final.
The 2024 Olympic champions had a shaky start after a less-than-perfect baton exchange between Brown and Blake, as reported by CBC. But the experienced lineup stayed composed. Blake, Rodney and De Grasse powered through to a third-place finish behind South Africa and the U.S.
Canada’s time of 38.11 on Sunday was off their 37.50 national record from Tokyo 2021 and their 37.89 world silver performance from Nassau in 2024, but it was enough for the podium—and a critical qualification for worlds. “We handled business,” Brown said to media post-race. “The first order of business, like [head coach] Glenroy [Gilbert] said, was to qualify for Tokyo. So we checked that box off.”
Canadian women’s 4 x 100m team sets new national record
Canadian women were not to be outdone, as they shot to a new women’s 4x100m relay record time of 42.46 on Sunday, set by Sade McCreath, Jacqueline Madogo, Marie-Éloïse Leclair and Audrey Leduc. Like the Canadian 4×100 men’s team, they also qualified for the 2025 World Championships this summer in Tokyo.
The mark eclipsed the Canadian team’s own previous record of 42.50, set in the 4x100m qualifying round at the 2024 Paris Olympics, where the team eventually finished in sixth place. “We knew from the first time we stepped on the track together that we had the potential to break the national record,” Leduc told Canadian Running at the time. Now that they’ve lowered the record twice, fans will be eager to see what fast performances the women bring to the Tokyo track.
