Great Britain progressed to Saturday’s 4x400m mixed relay final at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo after finishing second in their heat, clocking 3:10.22. The squad—Lewis Davey, Nicole Yeargin, Toby Harries and Yemi Mary John—saw John hunt down South Africa’s Zeney van Der Walt in the closing metres to seal second behind the United States.

Britain were the second-fastest across the two heats and head into the final with medals on their minds after silver at the last world championships in Budapest and bronze at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. John said: “Our target was just to qualify, we knew we were going in to have a fast heat, our heat was stacked – three teams who had run 3:09 including us, whereas the second heat only had one 3:09 team. We knew we were going to be the hotter of the two heats so we just needed to go out there and stick to the plan. I think we did exactly that we came top two and we qualified. Since Budapest and Paris the relays have been seeing medals and very successful – we’re definitely going to have targets on our backs but that’s what makes it more exciting.”

Scott Lincoln advanced to the shot put final with a 21-metre throw, while Cam Corbishley finished 34th in the morning’s 35km race walk, won by Canada’s Evan Dunfee, who claimed Olympic bronze in Tokyo in the 50km event four years ago.