PITREAVIE AAC star Nicole Yeargin will return to the track for Great Britain and Northern Ireland next month at the World Athletics Relays.

The 26-year-old is one of three Scottish athletes who have been chosen as part of the 32-strong squad for the event, which will be held in the Bahamas over the weekend of May 4-5.

She has been picked for the women's 4x400 metre relay, in which GB and NI will also compete in the men's event, alongside the men's and women's 4x100m, as well as the mixed 4x400m.

Nicole and her fellow squad mates will be hoping to help GB and NI meet the objective of UK Athletics to qualify all relay teams for the Paris Olympic Games, which begin in less than 100 days on July 26.

Dunfermline Press: Nicole Yeargin, pictured running at last year's Commonwealth Games, has been selected in the Great

The sport's governing body are hopeful that they will have representation in all five relay events at the Olympics, having won medals in four out of five at last year's World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary.

At that event Nicole, who was born and raised in the United States, but is eligible to run for both Scotland and Great Britain as her mum, Lynn, is originally from Dunfermline, ran the anchor leg of the women's 4x400m final and clinched bronze for GB and NI.

UK Athletics head coach, Paula Dunn, commented: "The GB and NI team selected is incredibly strong and we are heading to Nassau to secure those vital Paris Olympic slots.

"The performances in Budapest last summer were fantastic but we know each year the other nations are working harder and harder on their relay programmes. We cannot take anything for granted and we are going there with a clear aim to put us on the road to Paris."

Darren Campbell, head of sprints, hurdles and relays, said: "I am really pleased with the strength of the team that will be travelling to Nassau.

"The 4x400m squads have a 100 per cent medal record from Budapest to uphold and this event is the first step towards that aim."

Last year, Nicole was one of 67 athletes to receive funding from UK Athletics ahead of this summer's Olympics, having been nominated to join their Olympic World Class Programme (WCP) for 2023/24.

Backed by the National Lottery, the UK Sport initiative aims to to identify, develop and support talented athletes towards medal success at the Olympic Games and other major championships.

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Her success at the 2023 World Athletics Championships followed on from winning bronze at the 2022 event, in Oregon, USA, as well as at the European Athletics Championships, and Commonwealth Games for Scotland, in the same year.

If selected for Paris, Nicole would compete in her second Olympic Games, having taken part at the delayed Tokyo Games of 2020 three years ago.

In those, she helped Team GB finish fifth and sixth in the women’s and mixed 4x400m relays respectively, but suffered disqualification in the heats of the individual 400m.

Former Pitreavie AAC star Eilidh Doyle, who retired from athletics in 2021, won a 4x400m bronze with GB and NI at the 2015 World Athletics Relays, which were also held in Nassau.