2017 World Championships in Athletics – Men's 4 × 400 metres relay

The final race of the World Championships started fairly even, with USA's Wilbert London III and Britain's Matthew Hudson-Smith gaining slightly on the stagger on the inside, while Spain's Óscar Husillos was gaining on Trinidad and Tobago's Jarrin Solomon further toward the outside. Belgium's Robin Vanderbemden also looked to be having a strong leg all alone in lane 9. Coming down the homestretch, London sped up to have the USA the handoff first to Gil Roberts. Roberts came around the turn to take a 3-metre lead at the break, followed by GBR's Rabah Yousif and Spain's Lucas Búa, TTO's Jereem Richards was on the outside passing people. Into the far turn, he had beaten Yousif and kept going making up the gap on Roberts getting to within a metre. Down the homestretch, Roberts again opened up the gap, handing off to Michael Cherry three metres ahead of Trinidad and Tobago's handoff to Machel Cedenio. Great Britain's handoff to Dwayne Cowan was just a metre back as the top three teams had separated from the rest of the contenders. Through most of the lap, Cherry held a five-metre lead while Cowan was challenging Cedenio. Cedenio held off Cowan then on the homestretch he separated, making a run at Cherry. USA passed to Fred Kerley barely a metre ahead of TTO's pass to Lalonde Gordon. Kerley was the anchor runner of the fastest 4x400 relay of the year prior to the championships, running for Texas A&M at the end of the college season more than two months earlier. Kerley held that one-metre lead down the backstretch, then widened it slightly through the final turn. Behind Gordon, GBR's Martyn Rooney was closing down the gap to bring his team to within a metre coming off the turn. Kerley straightened up and ran tight for the finish while Gordon went to the outside for running room and ran past him, pulling away to a decisive 3-metre victory. Kerley maintained his distance from Rooney to get silver for USA. GBR's Rooney finished 8 metres ahead of the Belgian team, which included three Borlée brothers.

Before the competition records were as follows:[2]

Record	Perf.	Team	Date	Location
World	2:54.29	United States Andrew Valmon, Quincy Watts, Butch Reynolds, Michael Duane Johnson	22 Aug 1993	Stuttgart, Germany
Championship
World leading	2:59.95	Texas A&M University Richard Rose, My'Lik Kerley, Robert Grant, Fred Kerley	7 Jun 2017	Eugene, United States
African	2:58.68	Nigeria Clement Chukwu, Jude Monye, Sunday Bada, Enefiok Udo-Obong	30 Sep 2000	Sydney, Australia
Asian	3:00.76	Japan Shunji Karube, Koji Ito, Jun Osakada, Shigekazu Omori	3 Aug 1996	Atlanta, United States
NACAC	2:54.29	United States Andrew Valmon, Quincy Watts, Harry Reynolds, Michael Johnson	22 Aug 1993	Stuttgart, Germany
South American	2:58.56	Brazil Eronilde de Araújo, Cleverson da Silva, Claudinei da Silva, Sanderlei Parrela	30 Jul 1999	Winnipeg, Canada
European	2:56.60	Great Britain Iwan Thomas, Mark Richardson, Jamie Baulch, Roger Black	3 Aug 1996	Atlanta, United States
Oceanian	2:59.70	Australia Bruce Frayne, Gary Minihan, Rick Mitchell, Darren Clark	11 Aug 1984	Los Angeles, United States

The following records were set at the competition:[3]

Record	Perf.	Team	Date
World leading	2:58.12	Trinidad and Tobago Jarrin Solomon, Jereem Richards, Machel Cedenio, Lalonde Gordon	13 Aug 2017
Trinidad and Tobago
World leading	2:59.23	United States Wilbert London III, Bryshon Nellum, Michael Cherry, Tony McQuay	12 Aug 2017
Spanish	3:00.65	Spain Óscar Husillos, Lucas Búa, Darwin Echeverry, Samuel García	13 Aug 2017

The first eight placed teams at the 2017 IAAF World Relays and the host country qualify automatically for entry with remaining places being filled by teams with the fastest performances during the qualification period.[4]

The event schedule, in local time (UTC+1), is as follows:[5]