Filippo Tortu, teammates defined for world relay race

Filippo Tortu’s teammates

At the World Championships in Eugene it’s time for the blue relays: it’s the turn of the 4×100 on the Italian night between Friday and Saturday and the 4×400 the following night.

The composition of the fast quartets that will face the batteries on the eighth rainbow day at Hayward Field has been finalized. The reigning Olympic gold medalist men’s 4×100, which as known is without Marcell Jacobs, will consist of Lorenzo Patta in the first leg, Filippo Tortu in the second, Fausto Desalu in the third and Chituru Ali in the fourth.

At the start, therefore, there will be three of the protagonists of the Games triumph (37.50 Italian record), with Tortu moved to second and the inclusion of Ali in the final fraction. The Azzurri will run at 3.14 a.m. Italian time (6.14 p.m. Oregon time), in the second battery, in the fourth lane, along with the vice Olympic champions Canada and the quartets of Jamaica, France, Brazil, South Africa, Spain and Denmark. L

he first battery, kicking off at 3:05 a.m., is instead the one that includes hosts the United States, Great Britain, China rising to Olympic bronze after the British were disqualified, and the quartets of Japan, Germany, Nigeria, the Netherlands and Ghana. The qualifying mechanism for the following day’s final includes direct entry for the top three in each battery, plus two repechage times.