American Relay Team Disqualified at World Athletics Championships for Baton Mishap

The streak of dominance for the American women's 4x400 team is over.

A mishandled baton relay between Quanera Hayes and Alexis Holmes resulted in disqualification for the team at the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary on Saturday, according to The Associated Press.

They are likely to appeal, according to Reuters.

Hayes, Team USA's third runner, missed on several attempts to hand the stick to anchor runner Alexis Holmes on the fourth and final lap in the preliminary round. When they finally did make the exchange, they were out of the legal passing zone. The disqualification means the U.S. team will not win the event at the World Championships for only the second time in the last nine years.

"This is our first time doing handoffs together on a big stage and it was close between us and Britain, so maybe we just panicked a little bit, I don't know," Holmes told NBC Sports after the race.

Team USA's disqualification resulted in a higher finish for Ireland, who qualified for the final with a fourth-place result in the heat.

“We’ll look to come out and run fast again tomorrow and anything can happen. The USA are out and who’s to say what can happen in a world final. We’re going to recover and come back to do it again. We love competing together and we’ll give it our all for Ireland," Irish athlete Sophie Becker told The Ireland Times. "Who would have thought the USA would be out? Anything can happen, so we’ll go out and give it our all."