2015 IAAF World Relays – Men's distance medley relay explained

Event:Men's distance medley relay
Competition:2015 IAAF World Relays
Venue:Thomas Robinson Stadium
Dates:3 May (final)
Competitors:24
Nations:6
Win Value:9:15.50 (WR)
Gold:Kyle Merber
Brycen Spratling
Brandon Johnson
Ben Blankenship
Silver:Abednego Chesebe Miti
Alphas Kishoyian
Ferguson Cheruiyot Rotich
Timothy Cheruiyot
Bronze:Ryan Gregson
Alexander Beck
Jordan Williamsz
Collis Birmingham
Next:2017

The men's Distance medley relay at the 2015 IAAF World Relays was held at the Thomas Robinson Stadium on 3 May. This was the first time the event was held at a World Championship level meet. The previous world best, set by a Kenyan team in 2006 at the Penn Relays was elevated to World Record status due to the inclusion of the event in the World Relays. The event takes in a 1200m leg followed by a 400m leg, then an 800m leg before finishing with a 1600m leg.

In the first leg, Australian Ryan Gregson took it out in 2:53.15 to take a 5-meter lead over American Kyle Merber with Kenya another 7 meters back. Alexander Beck held the lead but Kenya's Alphas Leken Kishoyian gained a half a second on the leading two teams to pull his team back into contention. The 800 metre leg was thrilling as Brandon Johnson quickly passed Jordan Williamsz only to be overtaken by Ferguson Cheruiyot Rotich. Johnson used his best strategic tactics to edge back into the lead by the handoff. But Ben Blankenship had no interest in the lead, literally slowing down and inviting Timothy Cheruiyot to take over. Cheruiyot more than obliged, accelerating to a much faster pace breaking away from Blankenship possibly trying to steal the race while Collis Birmingham brought Australia back into the mix. After a little more than 2 laps, Cheruiyot began to pay the price for his early pace. As he tied up, Blankenship cruised by, but the race wasn't over. Cheruiyot stayed on Blankenship's heels and on the final backstretch, Blankenship showed signs of vulnerability. But coming off the turn, Blankenship had more speed and was able to pull away to the finish line. Setting a new world record, a .06 of a second improvement over the 9-year-old world record was just an after thought.

Records

Prior to the competition, the records were as follows:

World record Kenya
(Elkanah Angwenyi, Thomas Musembi, Alfred Yego, Alex Kipchirchir)
9:15.5629 April 2006
World Leading9:25.81 Nairobi, Kenya10 April 2015

Results

KEY:WRWorld recordARArea record

Final

The final was started at 20:51.[1]

Rank Lane Nation Athletes Time Notes
6 WR
3
1
4 5
5 4
6 2 10:50.63

Notes and References

  1. http://dt9guucc6nuua.cloudfront.net/competitiondocuments/pdf/5676/AT-DISMEAD-M-f----.RS6.pdf?v=-2055929315 Final Results