The team clocked 38.50 seconds in the first round and 38.46 in the second round.

On Sunday (AEST), a women’s team made up of Ebony Lane, Bree Masters, Ella Connolly and national record holder Torrie Lewis finished second in its heat in the first round of qualifying, securing qualification for the World Athletics Relays final and the Paris Games.

The team also broke the national 4x100m record it already owned, clocking 42.83.

In the final on Monday (AEST), the team finished fifth with a time of 43.02.

At the Sydney Track Classic in March, Lane, Masters, Connolly and Lewis combined forces to break a national record that had stood for 24 years, stopping the clock at 42.94.

Australia will be represented by a women’s 4x100m team at an Olympic Games for the first time since Sydney 2000, and a men’s 4x100m team for the first time since London 2012.

“It feels awesome,” Azzopardi told Wide World of Sports from The Bahamas.

“It’s been a goal of ours for the four or five years now that I’ve been in the [Athletics Australia relays] program.

Australia’s leading gold medal hopes as Paris Olympics loom: Swimmers, athletics stars, BMX racer among top shots

“To finally do it now is an achievement for sprinting in Australia against the biggest [sprinting] countries in the world in Jamaica and the USA.

“Those are the things you dream of, really,” he said of bursting over the finish line in the top two.

“I had envisioned it over the past couple of weeks and it came into reality today.”

After the women’s team confirmed its place at the Paris Games, Masters told Athletics Australia she was “so speechless”.

“I had full faith that we could do it, but we actually did it and it’s just wild. To have that automatic Olympic qualification is so, so exciting.”

When Wide World of Sports noted the drought-breaking feat to Masters after the first round, she admitted she wasn’t aware of that and was clearly rapt with the drought-breaking feat.

“That is very exciting,” the former beach sprinter and dancer told WWOS from the Caribbean.

“We’ve got a great crop of female sprinters in the country at the moment, so as much as tonight was a surprise when we heard we got second and qualified, I knew deep down that we could do it.

“We’ve got such a strong team and we’ve been practising together for almost three years now. So [it’s been about] putting that all together, working hard with our personal coaches, working hard at our relay camps with our coach Cathy [Walsh] … and having trust and faith in each other that we can make those exchanges quick and run the best race we can.”