4x400m Relay

The 4 x 400 meter relay track race is also referred to as the “long relay,” as it takes four full laps around the standard oval track to complete. It is a race for both men and women, although it is more dominated by men. In the most prestigious relay events, the first 500 meters of the race are required to be ran within a team's lane, staggering the first quarter of the race, after which they're free to break lanes so as long as they're not deliberately preventing a competitor from advancing. When it comes to the baton passing, this race differs from the 4 x 100 meter because now, it is the responsibility of the outgoing runner to retrieve the baton properly, because of the fatigue of the incoming runner. The baton exchange, takes place within a twenty meter parameter like the one in the 4 x 100 relay race, called the changeover box, where in the line marking the next leg splits the box in half, making it stretch to 10 meters from both sides.

This is one of the more exciting relay events, as there's are psychological factors involved. A chasing runner means that the race has no clear winner until the very last stretch, as the lead may change frequently.

For record times, the race is often timed as a whole. Individual records shouldn't be taken for the split times and vice versa, as the individual time of each competitor when they're performing for a single 400 meter run is different from the total time of the relay race divided by 4.

The 4 x 400 meter relay track race is mostly dominated by the U.S. national teams, Great Britain teams and the Jamaican teams. The world record for fastest time belongs to the U.S. team of 1998, in Uniondale New York, with a time of 2 minutes and 54.20 seconds. The team members were Jerome Young, Antonio Pettrigrew, Tyree Washington, and Michael Johnson. For women, the world record belongs to the team of USSR, with a record of 3 minutes and 15.17 seconds. The team members were Tatyana Ledovskaya, Olga Nazarova II, Maria Pinigina, and Olga Bryzgina.