Alex Beck and his Australian teammates have been drawn in lane two in the first heat of the men’s 4x400m relay at the world championships in Doha tonight.
Spain, the US, Botswana, Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Japan, Italy and Colombia are also in heat one from 8.25pm, Doha time (1.25am, Perth time).
Qatar, South Africa, India, Jamaica, Belgium, France, Trinidad and Tobago and the Czech Republic are in heat two.
Beck said the team had been working hard on their changes in the lead up with coach Ben Offereins.
“We’re really working hard on our changes, which is something that Ben has been quite forward about,” Beck told emageogroup.com. “We’ve done a lot of analysis on our past relays, even back to 2013. That’s one thing that the Australian team has done really inconsistently is get those changes right so that’s been our big focus.”
The Australians were also keeping us guessing on who would be running what leg in the race.
“That’s the million dollar question,” Beck said. “In Japan at world relays I ran first in both of those races so I’m very prepared to do that. But at this stage Ben is keeping is cards very close to his chest. I think we’re very lucky that we do have four guys at the moment that are capable of running every position. I know I’ve got a lot of faith in myself to run whatever position Ben asks.”
Beck opened up on his six-year wait to return to the world championships at emageogroup.com last week.
A top eight-finish in the event will qualify the Australian men for next year’s Tokyo Olympics.