ATHLETICS

Pitreavie AAC's Nicole Yeargin and GB in World Relays success

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Pitreavie AAC star Nicole Yeargin has helped two Great Britain and Northern Ireland relay squads secure qualification for the World Athletics Championships.

The 27-year-old, who won two medals at last year's Olympic Games in Paris, travelled to Guangzhou, China, for the 2025 World Athletics Relays, which took place over Saturday and Sunday.

The seventh edition of the competition saw nations compete in the men's and women's 4x100m, 4x400m, and mixed 4x100m and 4x400m, with the latter two disciplines featuring a combination of the male and female athletes named in the squad.

With a new Olympic cycle towards Los Angeles in three years time beginning, UK Athletics made their selection with a view to qualifying for September's 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo - and Nicole was part of two of the teams who did.

The United States born and based athlete, who qualifies to run for both Scotland and Great Britain as her mum, Lynn, is originally from Dunfermline, ran in the mixed 4x400 metres and the women's 4x400m.

In the former, Nicole took the baton for the final leg of the heat from Sam Lunt, who had taken over with the team in the lead after Josh Faulds and Emily Newnham had run the opening two.

She then held her line strongly and, as South Africa's Zenéy Geldenhuys tried to get the better of her, she pulled away in the last 200m to secure the win in a season's best of three minutes and 13.28 seconds.

That secured the mixed 4x400m relay squad's place in Tokyo and, afterwards, she said: "‘We have a lot of new faces in the squad.

"A lot of young people coming up, so it’s nice to see the vets and the rookies bonding and coming out here and seeing this team do their best. Then (to) see them literally execute the race and do everything they were supposed to do, I'm just proud."

Nicole then went on to play her part in helping the women's 4x400m team achieve the same outcome.

In their opening heat, Victoria Ohuruogu, Hannah Kelly, Lina Nielsen and Laviai Nielsen placed third, behind the Spanish and Italian quartets, who secured Tokyo qualification.

Their time of 3:27.47 also saw them narrowly miss out on the fastest qualifier spot to Canada (3:27.28), which meant they competed in the repechage on day two of the competition.

A top three position would then secure their passage to the World Athletics Championships and, for that race, Nicole and Newnham ran with the Nielsen sisters.

Team captain Lina Nielsen handed the baton over in first place to Nicole for the final leg, who maintained their lead to steer GB home in 3:24.46.

If selected, this year's World Athletics Championships would represent a return to the city where Nicole competed in her first Olympic Games.

She ran in the mixed and women's 4x400m, and individual 400m, at the delayed Tokyo event in 2021, before starring in Paris last summer.

After running in the mixed 4x400m relay heat, she picked up a bronze medal as Team GB placed third in the final, before picking up a memorable second the day before her 27th birthday in the women's race.

Nicole won two medals at last summer's Paris Olympics.Nicole won two medals at last summer's Paris Olympics. (Image: Sam Mellish / Team GB.) In a thrilling track finale at the Stade de France, Nicole ran the third leg and ran a split time of 49.9 seconds before passing the baton on to Amber Anning, who anchored them home to bronze behind the United States and the Netherlands, setting a new British record time in the process.

That saw her join former Pitreavie stars, Linsey MacDonald, at the Moscow Games of 1980, and Eilidh Doyle, at Rio 2016, in winning a bronze medal in the women’s 4x400m relay.

Nicole has also won 4x400m bronze medals at the 2022 and 2023 World Athletics Championships, as well as at the 2022 European Athletics Championships, and the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham the same year, whilst running for Scotland.

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