4 × 400 m relay, men

What to remember

Known as the "long relay", the 4 × 400 m traditionally closes a track meet. In the World Championships final in Stuttgart, on August 22, 1993, the United States team of Andrew Valmon, Quincy Watts, Butch Reynolds and Michael Johnson finished it in 2 min 54.29 s, an average of 33.048 km/h over 1600 m.

The first leg and the first bend of the second leg are run in lanes, after which the runners usually move to the inside of the track. The record kept improving for almost a century: 3 min 16.6 s in 1912, 3 min 08.2 s in 1932, 2 min 56.2 s in 1968 and 2 min 56.16 s in 1988. Between 1912 and 1993 the time fell by 11.3%, over 81 years.

Andrew Valmon, a 400 m specialist, had already won Olympic relay gold in 1988 and in 1992 in Barcelona; that same year he ran the 400 m in 44.28 s. In the British Commonwealth and the United States, the slightly longer imperial 4 × 440 yards relay faded out as metrication was completed in the 1970s.