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PPAC-157 4x400m Urban Relay [6 September 2026]


This week we hosted an exciting urban relay event, for something a little different. Closures to the track meant that we were unable to go ahead with our planned event, but an improvised urban track at Koh Pich City Hall Park provided a unique yet suitable location.

Our urban track has been precisely measured to be a lap of 235m, making this month’s event, possibly the world’s first 4x470m relay race!

Our athletes started the morning with a warm up of another improvised course of ~800m, which we used as a qualifying heat to determine the placement of athletes into balanced teams. A Snake draft order was used to place the athletes into 3 teams, based on their seedings.

After announcing team placement, the athletes were given around 10 minutes to discuss strategy and practice their baton passing techniques before the race began.

The first leg was hot and evenly matched, with less than 4 seconds separating the teams after the first transition. Bertrand got the green team out to an early lead, but Matthieu and James kept within touching distance to give their teams a chance. And taking that chance immediately was Bora, who worked his way up the field, snatching the lead and giving a 2.5s advantage to Team Pink after the second leg.

Team Pink and Team Blue continued with almost identical splits in legs 3 and 4 courtesy of Jess and Dmitry (Pink), and Charles and Pieter (Blue). At the final finish it was Team Pink that took the victory, Team Blue in 2nd place and Team Green an honorable 3rd. Special mention to Hugo’s final leg for Team Green, the fastest of any athlete, despite not being enough to make up the sizable gap he was tasked with.

It is important to note that our non-standard course certainly had an impact on the times and it is difficult to compare these results to other races. Not only were the legs 70m longer than the standard 4x400m race, but the course also featured four 90º turns per lap.


Thanks as always to our volunteer Vincent on the day, as well as Hugo and Jack for measuring the courses prior.

We would like to extend our gratitude to all the club members, runners and supporters who made this running event a success and whose support allows us to continue to organise community athletics activities for all.

Phnom Penh Athletics Club is a community-oriented members club that has the vision of making high quality contributions to the development of grassroots athletics and access to sport in Cambodia. We welcome community-minded runners, coaches and parents (including non-runners/non-sportspeople) to get involved and we appreciate your feedback. We look forward to seeing you all next time!

Keep on track of our schedule of 🏃💪⏱ training sessions, 🏁🏅races and more fun activities 👟🎽 on our Telegram channel! Connect with us via the following ⬇️

© PPAC 2026

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