2023 Video of World Championship Semis Shared as One From Paris Olympics

This video was from the 2023 4*400 semi-final World Athletics Championship.

Fact-Check: This video is from 2023 and not the ongoing Paris Olympics.

(Source: The Quint) 

A video showing a track relay race is being shared to claim that Team India qualified for the Paris Olympics final.

Who shared it?: This video was shared by retired Indian Police Services (IPS) officer Kiran Bedi on her official X (formerly Twitter) account.

An archive of the post can be found here. 

(Source: X/Screenshot)

(Archives of similar claims can be found here and here.)

Is this true?: This claim is false.

• The video is old from 2023. It shows the 4x400 relay race of the semi-finals of the World Athletics Championship.

• The athletic matches of the Paris Olympics start from 1 August.

What we found: We divided the video into multiple keyframes and ran a Google and Yandex reverse image searches on some of them.

• We came across a post on X by Doordarshan Sports on 27 August 2023 that featured a part of the viral video.

• Below is the comparison.

Here is the comparison between the two. 

(Source: The Quint) 

• Doordarshan Sports posted the video with the caption, "#TeamIndia makes history with a stunning 4x400m relay 2nd place finish."

• They added, "Phenomenal from India’s Anas, Amoj, Rajesh & Ajmal clocking a new Asian & National Record of 2:59.05 at World Championships."

• Calcutta Times posted the same clip as the viral video on their Facebook page on 27 August 2023.

• Incidentally, many users commented on Bedi's post, stating that the video from the 2023 World Athletics Championship.

Here is preview of Bedi's comment section of her X post. 

(Source: X/Screenshot) 

• We could also trace other posts on X and YouTube from August 2023 noting India qualifying the semi-finals of the tournament. You can view these here and here.

• News platforms such as the Times of India and SportsStar covered India qualifying to the finals.

Paris Olympics Schedule: According to the schedule on the Olympics website, the athletic games will start on 1 August.

Here is the schedule for the Athletic games for the Paris Olympics. 

(Source: Olympics/Screenshot) 

Conclusion: An old video from 2023 of the World Championship was incorrectly shared as one from the Paris Olympics.

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