Baton passed to young generation with Chinese men's relay team

The Chinese men's 4x100-meter relay team of Xie Zhenye, Wu Zhiqiang, Chen Jiapeng and Yan Haibing secured qualification for the event for the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris at the World Athletics Relays in Nassau, The Bahamas, in May.

Seven months before that, Xie, Chen Jiapeng, Yan and Chen Guanfeng won the men's 4x100-meter gold medal for China at the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province, in October 2023. Chen Jiapeng, as the team's fourth runner, surpassed his Japanese rival at the end of the race for his side to win it in 38.29 seconds.

It was decided for Chen Jiapeng to be the fourth runner only half a month before the Asian Games began. He just turned 21 in July 2023. Compared with Xie, the rest three of the team were all young blood in their early 20s.

"When I got the baton, I was about one step behind the Japanese sprinter," Chen Jiapeng told China Media Group (CMG). "I believe I could do it, and I did it. The power of the team is great. They put me in the decisive race. I did my best and responded to the expectations on me."

It has been a tradition for the Chinese men's relay team to load young runners with key roles. For example, in the men's 4x100-meter relay final at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, Wu, who was the second-youngest of the four, was the fourth one to start and he surpassed the Jamaican runner for China to finish in the fourth place in 37.79 seconds. Later, China were awarded the bronze medal, their first Olympic medal in the sport, after silver medalists Great Britain were stripped of their honor over a doping violation.

Of course, young runners were given the heavy duties only because they showed the ability to shoulder them. For example, Chen Jiapeng finished a men's 100-meter race in the U.S. in 10.08 seconds in April, becoming the fifth Chinese athlete to run faster than 10.1 seconds.

"You can tell by Chen Jiapeng's performance at the Asian Games in Hangzhou that he has a remarkable sprinting ability as the fourth runner," Wu told CMG. "So, in our current squad, he can give us a bigger advantage than we had at the Tokyo Olympics."

Though Su Bingtian has to skip the Paris Olympics after failing to maintain systematic training sessions in nearly two years, the growth of the young generation gave the team confidence for the competition in Paris.

"My big brothers were in top three last time," Chen Jiapeng said. "I want to get close to them, not necessarily to surpass them, but to match them."