Olympic relay

The Olympic relay is a relay discipline in athletics . The individual sections are sometimes of different lengths (800, 200, 200 and 400 meters). At the Olympic Games it was run only once, in 1908 in London , within the men's competition. There the US team ( William Hamilton , Nate Cartmell , John Taylor , Mel Sheppard ) won ahead of Germany ( Arthur Hoffmann , Hans Eicke , Otto Trieloff , Hanns Braun ) and Hungary ( Pál Simon , Frigyes Mezei , József Nagy , Ödön Bodor ).

In the meantime, the Olympic relay is meaningless, as no world record is held for it in the International Athletics Federation .

Occasionally, competitions with other than the original sections are held under the name of the Olympic relay, for example 100, 200, 400 and 800 meters.

In Germany, this relay is still very popular in the non-competitive sports sector, as both medium-distance athletes and sprinters are involved. In the early 1990s, the German Athletics Association changed the international order for national events: 400 meters first - 800 meters last; In practice, this led to organizational difficulties, as the maximum of eight 400-meter starting runners had to run in lanes, and starting blocks, lane and inverters were required.