Sprint medley relay

Common lengths of the race could be 800 meters or 1600 meters. The 800 meters variation usually would be two 100 meters legs, a 200 meters leg and a 400 meters leg. The 800 meter version is sometimes referred to as the Super Sprint Medley Relay to distinguish it from the longer version. More commonly, the 800 meters version is distinguished by abbreviated leg numbers (1-1-2-4). The events are usually not referred to by their cumulative distance as that would tend to indicate 4 legs of the same distance. The 1600 meters variation usually would be two 200 meters legs, a 400 meters leg and an 800 meters leg. It would be named numerically (2-2-4-8).[1] Some have done a 1000 meters variation, which does not fit into an even number of laps, running a 100 meters leg, a 200 meters leg, a 300 meters leg and a 400 meters leg. The (1-2-3-4) format is referred to as the Swedish relay. At some youth level meets, where the handoff is not as refined, the 400 meters leg has been conducted first. This is consistent with a related event, the Distance medley relay which starts with a longer race. At a higher level of athlete, this would put handoffs for short sprinting legs into theoretical common passing zones unless the track is specifically marked with the 4 turn stagger required to run a 4 x 200 meters relay entirely in lanes. Short sprinters moving around in a common passing zone at the last moment is a potentially chaotic situation.

The descriptions below describe how to conduct the variations of the event using commonly available markings. It is assumed 4 turn staggers are not common, and even if they are marked, appropriate passing zones are not marked for the (1-1-2-4) version using either a 4 turn or 3 turn stagger. So these descriptions use a standard 2 turn stagger, causing the athletes to break to the inside following the exchange at the end of the first lap. Colors mentioned are specific only if the track is marked following rulebook recommendations. Since they are only recommendations in the rulebook, some tracks choose to paint their lines using localized color schemes.

• Distance medley relay
• Swedish relay