The 400 metres, or 400-meter dash, is a sprint event in track and field competitions. It has been featured in the athletics programme at the Summer Olympics since 1896 for men and since 1964 for women. On a standard outdoor running track, it is one lap around the track. Runners start in staggered positions and race in separate lanes for the entire course. In many countries, athletes previously competed in the 440-yard dash (402.336 m)—which is a quarter of a mile and was referred to as the 'quarter-mile'—instead of the 400 m (437.445 yards), though this distance is now obsolete.
Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie is a former Bahamian sprinter who specialised in the 100 and 200 metres. Ferguson-McKenzie participated in five Olympics.
Allyson Michelle Felix is a retired American track and field athlete who competed in the 100 meters, 200 meters and 400 meters. She specialized in the 200 meters from 2003 to 2013, then gradually shifted to the 400 meters later in her career. At 200 meters, Felix is the 2012 Olympic champion, a three-time world champion (2005–2009), a two-time Olympic silver medalist, and the 2011 world bronze medalist. At 400 meters, she is the 2015 world champion, 2011 world silver medalist, 2016 Olympic silver medalist, 2017 world bronze medalist, and 2020 Olympic bronze medalist. Across the short distances, Felix is a ten-time U.S. national champion.
Natalya Nikolayevna Antyukh is a Russian sprinter who specializes in the 400 metres and 400 metres hurdles. She won the bronze medal in the 400 metres and a silver for the 4 × 400 m relay at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens.
Pauline Elaine Davis-Thompson is a former Bahamian sprinter. She competed at five Olympics, a rarity for a track and field athlete. She won her first medal at her fourth Olympics and her first gold medals at her fifth Olympics at age 34 in the 4 × 100 m Relay and, after Marion Jones' belated disqualification nine years later, in the 200m.
Michael Mathieu is a retired Bahamian sprinter from Freeport, Grand Bahama who specialized in the 200 metres and 400 metres. He was part of the Bahamian silver medal-winning team in the men's 4×400 metres relay at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, running second leg and recording a 44.0 split, and the gold medal-winning team at the 2012 Summer Olympics. He was also a part of second place relay team at the 2007 World Championships. He won the bronze medal in the 4x400 metres relay in the 2016 Summer Olympics.
Demetrius Pinder is a Bahamian male track and field sprint athlete who competes in the 400 metres. His personal best for the event is 44.77 seconds. At the 2012 London Olympics he was a 400 m finalist and relay gold medallist.
Anthonique Strachan is a Bahamian sprinter, she is the 2012 100m and 200m World Junior Champion. She competed at the 2012 Summer Olympics, 2016 Summer Olympics and the 2020 Summer Olympics, in 200 m. and 4 × 400 m relay
Carl Oliver Jr. is a Bahamian former track and field sprinter who specialised in the 400 metres. He is the current secretary of the Bahamas Association of Athletic Associations. His greatest achievements on the track came with the Bahamian 4×400 metres relay team. He was a bronze medallist in the relay at the 2000 Summer Olympics and was also a finalist at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and the 1999 World Championships in Athletics. He helped set a national record of 3:02.85 minutes at the 1995 World Championships in Athletics.
Michael Sands is a Bahamian former track and field sprinter. During his peak he held the Bahamian records from 100 metres to 400 metres.
Stephenie Ann McPherson is a Jamaican track and field athlete, who specializes in the 400 metres. She has won a bronze medal in the event at the 2013 World Championships, and then placed in the finals of both the 2016 Rio Olympics and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and all four following World Championships between 2015 and 2022, consecutively. McPherson earned also a bronze at the 2022 World Indoor Championships. She added medals in the 4 x 400 metres relays, taking a silver at the 2016 Olympics, a gold in 2015 in Beijing, and a bronze in 2019.
Phyllis Chanez Francis is an American track and field athlete. She won the gold medal at the 2017 World Championships in the 400 metres and 4 × 400 metres relay events.
Janieve Russell is a Jamaican track and field athlete who competes mainly in the 400 metres hurdles and the 400 metres sprint. She won an Olympic bronze medal in the 4 × 400 m relay in Tokyo 2021, where she also finished fourth in the 400m hurdles final in a personal best of 53.08 secs. She is a four-time Commonwealth Games gold medallist, winning the 400m hurdles title in 2018 and 2022, and the 4 × 400 m relay in 2014 and 2018. She has also won two relay silvers at the World Championships and a relay gold at the World Indoor Championships.
Steven Gardiner is a Bahamian track and field sprinter competing in the 400 metres and 200 metres. He is the 2020 Olympic and 2019 world champion in the 400 m, and also won the silver medal at the 2017 World Championships in that event. His winning time of 43.48 s from the 2019 World Championships is the Bahamian record and makes him the sixth-fastest man in the history of the event. Gardiner also owns the Bahamian records in the outdoor 300 m and 200 m, with times of 31.83 s and 19.75 s respectively, and the world best in the indoor 300 m at 31.56 s.
Salwa Eid Naser is a Nigerian-born Bahraini sprinter who specialises in the 400 metres. She was the 2019 World champion with the third fastest time in history of 48.14 seconds, becoming the youngest-ever champion in the event and also the first woman representing an Asian nation to win that event at a World Championships. The mark places her only behind contested results of Marita Koch and Jarmila Kratochvílová. Over the distance, at only 19, Naser was the 2017 World silver medallist. She has also won, as a member of Bahraini mixed-gender 4x400 m relay team, the 2019 World Championships bronze medal.
Sada Williams is a Barbadian sprinter competing primarily in the 200 and 400 metres. She won the bronze medal in the 400 m at the 2022 World Championships, becoming the first Barbadian woman ever to win a medal at the World Athletics Championships. Williams took a gold in the event at the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
The women's 400 metres event at the 2020 Summer Olympics took place from 3 to 6 August 2021 at the Japan National Stadium. 45 athletes from 34 nations competed. Shaunae Miller-Uibo won the gold medal in a personal best of 48.36 secs, a time which ranks her sixth on the world all-time list. In successfully defending her title, Miller-Uibo joined Marie-Jose Perec as the only women to win two Olympic 400 metres titles.
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 with the Dutch women's team.
Megan Moss is a Bahamian athlete. She competed in the women's 4 × 400 metres relay event at the 2020 Summer Olympics. Moss also competed at the 2022 World Athletics Indoor Championships – Women's 400 metres in Belgrade, Serbia.
This article is about the Athletics in the Bahamas from the early 20th century to onward
