Indian 4x400m Relay Team Breaks Asian Record

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What has happened?

The Indian men’s 4x400m relay quartet shattered the Asian record during the Olympics heat race but missed qualifying for the final round by a whisker here on Friday.
The quartet of Muhammed Anas Yahiya, Tom Noah Nirmal, Rajiv Arokia and Amoj Jacob completed the race in 3:00.25sec to finish fourth in the second heat.

One of the most adrenaline-pumping sights in an athletics event, a relay raceis viewed as the ultimate example of teamwork and coordination.
The concept originated in ancient Greece, where a ‘message stick’ was passed along via a number of couriers.
At the Olympics and other World Athletics-sanctioned tournaments, a relay race is an event where a team of four athletes run equal predetermined distances in a sprint race, each passing a rod-like object called the ‘baton’ to the next person to continue the race.
The last runner in a relay is called the ‘anchor’.

The team members cover a distance of 400m each before passing on the baton to the next team member.
The baton exchange has to happen within a 20m changeover box, located 10m before and 10m after the start of each leg, starting from the second relay runner.
A team can be disqualified if any member drops the baton during the handover or if the handover occurs outside the designated area.
The 4x400m relay was also introduced at the Olympics as a men’s-only event at the 1912 Stockholm Games, While the women’s event was first run at Munich 1972.

The Indian team had qualified for the Olympics on the basis of the 3:01.89 timing clocked during the National Inter-
State Championships in June, Which had put it in the 13th spot in World Athletics’ top list.

Jacob, who ran the last leg, was the best among the four Indian runners with 44.68 seconds as he overtook two rivals after the team was placed at sixth when he took the baton from Rajiv Arokia (44.84).
National record holder Yahiya understandably clocked the slowest (45.60) time as he had to run the longest distance after starting the race in lane number 2.