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A relay race is a racing competition where members of a team take turns completing parts of Race track 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 (usually with a baton in the fist). In the Olympic Games, there are several types of relay races that are part of track and field, each 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 (4 × 100-metre) and 1,600-metre (4 × 400-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.
FINA rules require that a foot of the second, third or fourth swimmer must be contacting the platform while (and before) the incoming teammate is touching the wall; the starting swimmer may already be in motion, however, which saves 0.6–1.0 seconds compared to a regular start. Besides, many swimmers perform better in a relay than in an individual race owing to a team spirit atmosphere. As a result, relay times are typically 2–3 seconds faster than the sum of best times of individual swimmers.
In medley swimming, each swimmer uses a different stroke (in this order): backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly stroke, and freestyle, with the added limitation that the freestyle swimmer cannot use any of the first three strokes. At competitive levels, essentially all freestyle swimmers use the front crawl. Note that this order is different from that for the individual medley, in which a single swimmer swims butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle in a single race, in that order.
The three standard relays raced at the Olympics are the 4 × 100 m freestyle relay, 4 × 200 m freestyle relay and 4 × 100 m medley relay.
Mixed-gendered relays were introduced at the 2014 FINA World Swimming Championships (25 m) (4 × 50 m freestyle and medley) and the 2015 World Aquatics Championships (4 × 100 m freestyle and medley). The event debuted at the 2020 Summer Olympics (4 × 100 m medley).
In open water swimming, mixed-gendered relays were introduced at the 2011 World Aquatics Championships (4 × 1250 m).
Traditionally, the 4 × 400 m relay finals are the last event of a track meet, and is often met with a very enthusiastic crowd, especially if the last leg is a close race. It is hard to measure exact splits in a 4 × 400 (or a 4 × 100) relay. For example, if a team ran a 3-minute 4 × 400, it does not mean every runner on the team has to run a 45-second open 400, because a person starts accelerating before they have the baton, therefore allowing for slightly slower overall open 400 times. A 4 × 400 relay generally starts in lanes for the first leg, including the handoff. The second leg then proceeds to run in lanes for the first 100 metres, after which point the runners are allowed to break into the first lane on the backstretch, as long as they do not interfere with other runners. A race organizer then puts the third-leg runners into a line depending on the order in which they are running (with the first place closest to the inside). The faster teams pass first, while the slower teams have to slide in to the inside lanes as they come available.
According to the IAAF rules, world records in relays can only be set if all team members have the same nationality. Several superior marks were established by teams from a mixture of countries and were thus never ratified.
Major USA Track and field events, f.e. the Penn Relays, Drake Relays, Kansas Relays, Mt. SAC Relays, Modesto Relays, Texas Relays, West Coast Relays, include different types of relays.
A team may be disqualified from a relay for:
Based on the speed of the runners, the generally accepted strategy used in setting up a four-person relay team is: second-fastest, third-fastest, slowest, then fastest (Anchor leg); however some teams (usually middle school or young high school) use second-fastest, slowest, third-fastest, then the fastest (anchor). But if a runner is better in the starting blocks than the others, they may be moved to the first spot because it is the only spot that uses starting blocks.
Another large relay event is the Penn Relays, which attracts over 15,000 competitors annually on the high-school, collegiate and professional levels, and over its three days attracts upwards of 100,000 spectators. It is credited with popularizing relay racing in the sport of track & field.
The IAAF World Road Relay Championships was held from 1986 to 1998, with six-member teams covering the classic marathon distance.
Races under are run in a day, with each runner covering one or two legs. Longer relays are run overnight, with each runner typically covering three legs.
The world's longest relay race was Japan's Prince Takamatsu Cup Nishinippon Round-Kyūshū Ekiden, which begins in Nagasaki and continues for .
The Crusader Team Sprint Cross Country Relay Race is a fun and unique venue specifically designed to get runners familiar with distance running and excited for the rest of the cross country season. Teams will be pairs of runners. The team will run four loops of a 1-mile course. Runner “A” will run loop 1 and hand off to Runner “B.” Runner “B” will run the same loop and hand off back to Runner “A.” “A” runs one more loop, hands off to “B,” and “B” finishes. 3 race categories: boys, girls, and co-ed. Awards will be given in each of the three categories.
A mixed biathlon relay race was first held at the Biathlon World Championships 2005 in Khanty-Mansiysk, and it was added to the 2014 Winter Olympics.
There are other relays in autumn with requirements about the age and gender distributions:
The madison is a track cycling event where two riders take turns to complete the race. Riders can alternate at any moment by touching the partner with the hand. The madison is featured at the UCI Track Cycling World Championships since 1995 and the Olympics since 2000. The format has been used in six-day racing. In road racing, the Duo Normand is a two-man time trial relay held annually in Normandy, France. In mountain biking, the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships has a mixed team relay race since 1999.
The game show Triple Threat had a bonus round called the "Triple Threat Relay Round" which was played like a relay race. The winning team had to take turns matching song titles to its corresponding musical artists.
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