Making head and tails of the relays qualification

I was away over the week-end of the World Relays held in Nassau and I could not follow them live. So I had to content myself with the highlights and I must confess that I could not make head or tails of what was happening. Some teams were qualified for the Paris Olympics but it was not at all clear what were the criteria. I tried to find some information on the World Athletics site but, as I know from past experience, that was useless. When I tried to download the 2024 World Relays booklet, the first thing I obtained was the bid guide. (It's superbly made but not so useful unless you are a national federation vying for the organisation of the event). The second document I could find was the one with the logistics information. (Not so useful unless you are a participating team). Finally I could obtain what I was looking for: I found it in the home page of the relays in the documents section, under the title of "Facts and Figures". I like these booklets since they contain a wealth of data on past competitions, but in the present case it was not very helpful concerning the olympic qualification procedure. As to the qualification tracking tool, that was unfortunately about the qualification for the World Relays and not for the Olympics. At least I learned something: the first 32 teams in each of the 5 events (4x100 W&M 4x400 W&M and 4x400 X) were qualified for the World Relays. 

Then I had a look at the results, which are summarised in the animated picture above. The first thing one learns is that there are 14 teams qualified in Nassau with the last two spots to be filled based on the top lists. And there are two tiers for the qualification. The first 8 teams are labeled OQ1, while the additional 6 are OQ2. The things started becoming clear at this point. With 32 teams in all there were 4 heats for each event. The first 2 teams in each of these heats were automatically qualified for Paris. This left 24 teams, to which a second chance was offered. So they competed in 3 heats and, again, the first 2 obtained the qualification for the Olympics.  Thus the qualified teams rounded up to exactly 14 per discipline. It's a quite simple and fair system and I would have liked to have it explained in so many words on the home page of the World Relays. (When you follow the highlights you do not understand anything since the "second-chance" qualifying rounds are presented together with the finals, held for the OQ1 teams). So, after spending some time and managing to dissect the qualifying system, I thought that I would share it with you. 

And for those of you who are perplexed by the animated picture, I can confirm that it contains a blunder. The times for the OQ1 men's 4x400 teams are those of the corresponding women's teams. Here are the correct results:

BOT    2:59.73
RSA    2:59.76 
BEL    3:00.09 
JPN    3:00.98
GER    3:01.25 
ITA      3:01.68 
NGR    3:01.70 
GBR    3:02.10 

Fortunately it's only the graphic that is wrong. The times in the results' section are correct.