A relay race is a racing competition where members of a team take turns completing parts of racecourse or performing a certain action. Relay races take the form of professional races and amateur games. Relay races are common in running, orienteering, swimming, cross-country skiing, biathlon, or ice skating. In the Olympic Games, there are several types of relay races that are part of track and field. Relay race, also called Relay, is a track-and-field sport consisting of a set number of stages (legs), usually four, each leg run by different members of a team. The runner finishing one leg is usually required to pass the next runner a stick-like object known as a "baton" while both are running in a marked exchange zone. In most relays, team members cover equal distances: Olympic events for both men and women are the 400-metre and 1,600-metre relays. Some non-Olympic relays are held at distances of 800 m, 3,200 m, and 6,000 m. In the less frequently run medley relays, however, the athletes cover different distances in a prescribed order—as in a sprint medley of 200, 200, 400, 800 metres or a distance medley of 1,200, 400, 800, 1,600 metres.
The 4 × 400 metres relay or long relay is an athletics track event in which teams consist of four runners who each complete 400 metres or one lap. It is traditionally the final event of a track meet. At top class events, the first leg and the first bend of the second leg are run in lanes. Start lines are thus staggered over a greater distance than in an individual 400 metres race; the runners then typically move to the inside of the track. The slightly longer 4 × 440 yards relay, on an Imperial distance, was a formerly run British Commonwealth and American event, until metrication was completed in the 1970s.
Slobodan Branković is a Serbian former track and field athlete who specialised in the 400 metres. He is currently the general secretary of the Athletics Federation of Serbia.
Kate Avery is a British long-distance runner. She competes in track and road competitions but specialises in cross country running. She was twice silver medallist at the 2014 European Cross Country Championships and 2015, and also a gold medallist on both occasions as part of the Great Britain women's senior team. She became the first British woman to win the NCAA Women's Division I Cross Country Championship in 2014, running for Iona College.
Lieke Klaver is a Dutch track and field athlete who competes in sprinting. She specializes in the 200 metres and in the 400 metres. In the 4 × 400 metres relay, she is the 2023 World Champion and the 2024 World Indoor Champion with the Dutch women's team.
Hamish Carson is a middle distance athlete from New Zealand. He represented his country at the 2016 Summer Olympics in the 1500 metres.
Rahel Daniel Chebre is an Eritrean long-distance runner. She finished fifth in the 10,000 metres at the 2022 World Athletics Championships.
Molly Scott is an Irish track and field athlete. She is a multiple Irish 60m national champion as well as the national record holder over that distance. She has been called “Ireland's fastest woman”.
The 2024 World Athletics Cross Country Championships was held in Belgrade, Serbia, on 30 March 2024. It was held in the Park of Friendship, next to the Danube, which was also the site of the 2013 European Championships.
Birke Haylom is an Ethiopian long-distance runner. She won gold at the 1500 metres at the 2022 World Athletics U20 Championships. In February 2023 she won a silver medal in the mixed relay at the 2023 World Athletics Cross Country Championships. She is the U20 world record holder in the mile run, and 1500 metres indoors.
Alice Goodall is a British track and field athlete who competes in long distance and cross country running. In 2023, she won gold at the European U23 Athletics Championships over 10,000 metres.
Naomi Korir is Kenyan track and field athlete who competes as a middle-distance runner.
Eliza Nicholson is a British long distance runner.
Emmaculate Anyango Achol is a Kenyan cross country runner.
Samuel Kibathi Wanjiru is Kenyan long distance and cross country runner.
Asayech Ayichew is an Ethiopian long distance runner.
Mezgebu Sime is an Ethiopian long distance runner.
Alexandra Millard is a British middle distance, long distance, and cross country runner.
The Senior men's race at the 2024 World Athletics Cross Country Championships was held at Belgrade, Serbia, on March 30, 2024. Jacob Kiplimo from Uganda won the gold medal by 3 seconds over Ethiopia's Berihu Aregawi and Kenya's Benson Kiplangat, who finished third.
The Senior women's race at the 2024 World Athletics Cross Country Championships was held at Belgrade, Serbia, on March 30, 2024. Beatrice Chebet from Kenya won the gold medal by 3 seconds over Kenya's Lilian Kasait Rengeruk and Kenya's Margaret Kipkemboi, who finished third.
