4×100 metres relay at the Olympics

4 × 100 metres relay at the Olympic Games
The 2012 Olympic men's 4×100 m - USA team
Overview
Sport	Athletics
Gender	Men and women
Years held	Men: 1912 – 2016 Women: 1928 – 2016
Olympic record
Men	36.84  Jamaica (JAM) (2012)
Women	40.82  United States (USA) (2012)
Reigning champion
Men	Jamaica (JAM)
Women	United States (USA)

The 4×100 metres relay at the Summer Olympics is the shortest track relay event held at the multi-sport event. The men's relay has been present on the Olympic athletics programme since 1912 and the women's event has been continuously held since the 1928 Olympics. It is the most prestigious 4×100 m relay race at elite level.

The competition has two parts: a first round and an eight-team final. Historically, there has been a semi-final round, but this has been eliminated as selection is now determined by time – the sixteen fastest nations during a pre-Olympic qualification period are entered. Since 1988, teams may enter up to six athletes for the event. Larger nations typically have two reserves runners in the first round in order to preserve the fitness of their top runners for the final. Heat runners of medal-winning teams receive medals even if they did not run in the final.

The Olympic records for the event were both set at the 2012 London Olympics: the Jamaican men's team ran 36.84 seconds and the American women's team won with 40.82 seconds, both of them world records. The men's world record has been broken and equalled at the Olympics on numerous occasions. The record was set at six consecutive editions from 1912 to 1936, then five straight editions from 1956 to 1972. Since then, the men's Olympic final has been won in a world record time in 1984, 1992, 2008 and 2012. The women's world record has been similarly linked to the Olympics: the record was broken on the first three occasions it was contested as an Olympic event (1928 to 1936). It was then improved at six successive Olympics from 1952 to 1972. The women's world record at the 2012 Olympic Games ended the forty-year absence of such a feat.

The United States is by far the most dominant nation in the event. The country has won the men's race 15 times and the women's race on 11 occasions. The American men accrued eight straight wins from 1920 to 1956 and have won a medal in the event at all but six Olympics (boycott in 1980, and baton pass failures in 1912, 1960, 1988, 2008 and 2016). The American women took four consecutive gold medals from 1984 to 1996. As of 2016, no other country has won more than three golds in the men's or women's event. Jamaica (four wins, nine medals), Great Britain (two wins, fifteen medals) and the Soviet Union (two wins, eleven medals) are the next most successful nations.