100m mixed sprint relay coming to LA28

 The International Olympic Com­mittee (IOC) has officially added a mixed 4×100-metre relay to the athlet­ics programme for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games, marking a significant step toward gender inclusivity and innovation in track and field.

This event will feature teams composed of two women and two men, with the running order currently set as woman-woman-man-man, though this configura­tion is subject to change based on upcoming trials.

The mixed 4x100m relay will debut at the 2025 World Athlet­ics Relays in Guangzhou and the inaugural Ultimate Championships in Budapest, serving as a testing ground for the event’s format. World Athletics has announced that official records for this event will be recognised starting January 2026.

The addition of the mixed 4x100m relay is part of a broader initiative by the IOC to modernise the Olympic Games and promote gender equality.

It joins several new events add­ed to the Olympic programme for 2028, including artistic gymnastics, table tennis, and golf, taking the number of medal events at LA28 to a record 351.

With the women’s football tournament boosted to 16 teams and the men’s event dropping to 12, for the first time in history, there will be more women athletes competing at the next Olympics than men. The 10,500-athlete quota in Los Angeles will be made up of 5,333 women and 5,167 men.

The mixed 4x100m relay is a promising event for the host nation, which had four medalists amongst the men’s and women’s individu­al 100m events at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, along with another four in the 200m events.

Noah Lyles secured gold for the US, while Fred Kerley came in third behind Jamaica’s silver medalist, Kishane Thompson.

Sha’Carri Richardson and Me­lissa Jefferson clinched silver and bronze in the women’s event behind the surprise champion Julien Alfred of Saint Lucia.

The two were part of the US team that took gold in the women’s 100m relay along with Twanisha Terry and the Paris 200m sprint gold medallist Gabrielle Thomas, though the men’s team crossed the finish line in seventh only to then learn that they had been disqualified.

The US has featured on 4 × 100m relay race podiums far more than any other nation with a record 15 gold medals since the Stockholm 1912 Olympics but is going through a dry spell, having not won since the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

In the women’s 4 × 100m relay race, meanwhile, the US has won 12 golds since 1928 in Amsterdam, finishing second to the Jamaican team at Tokyo 2020 but beating the Jamaican teams to gold in both 2016 and 2012.

Both the men’s and women’s 4×100 relay world records were set at the London 2012 Olympic Games, with the Jamaican team featuring the prime Usain Bolt clocking 36.84 seconds at the final and the US women’s team running in a record 40.82 seconds.

A US team could feature Lyles, Kerley, Richardson and one of Thomas, Terry, Jefferson-Wooden or another, while a revived Jamaica team could feature Oblique Seville, Alana Reid, Kishane Thompson, and Shericka Jackson.

Great Britain could also be a force to be reckoned with, having secured silver in the women’s 4 x 100m relay in Paris last summer and bronze in the men’s event.

Elsewhere, Australia, never pre­viously amongst the medal places, is showing promise in the form of rising stars Gout Gout and Lachlan Kennedy, who will be in their early twenties once LA28 comes around. –Insidethegames.biz

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