Olympic Short Track Men's Relay

The Olympic Short Track Men's relay event is 5000m in length and officially made its Winter Olympic debut in the 1992 Albertville games. Unlike the individual short track events, relays involve teams of four skaters going against other countries. Unlike running relay races, there are no batons to pass between one another, as each new teammate circles on the inside of the track and gets a pushed from the back when they are "relayed" into the race.http://www.infoplease.com/spot/winter-olympics-speed-skating.html

Due to this race being so long, skaters understand the importance of pacing themselves and practice switching in and out constantly. Finally, because their are so many competitors on the small ice surface at the same time, this race is often thrilling because of the high risk and high probability of a crash between competitors occurring. Staying away from the trouble is always on the minds of the skaters and as the race nears its finish, the intensity and tension rises exponentially.

After an intense final race in the Olympic short track Men's relay between Canada, China, USA and South Korea, it was the host nation Canada prevailing on top for the gold medal with a time of 6:44.224, beating out the South Koreans who came second, while the USA rounded out the podium finishes with a bronze

For the 2010 Vancouver games, the Men's 5000m relay short track event will take place at the Pacific Coliseum, and begins with the semifinals on February 17th. The finals of the event will take place nine days later on February 26th, as the final event of the speed skating portion of the Olympics.http://www.vancouver2010.com/olympic-short-track-speed-skating/

Winners

Given that this event has only been involved with the Olympic games since 1992, only 5 gold medals have ever been giving out, and of those five, four have gone to teams hailing from South Korea and Canada. The only exception was in 1994 Lillehammer Olympics when the team from Italy had a great performance and took home the gold.

Canada finished second at the 2006 Turin Olympics in 2006, but were back-to-back defending champions before that in 1998 and 2002. Korea comes to Vancouver as the defending champion however, and they will not want to relinquish their title without putting up a strong effort. The USA with their top notch skater Apolo Anton Ohno is always a dark-horse threat to make some noise as well. http://www.olympic.org/en/content/Sports/All-Sports/Skating/Short-track-speed-skating/All-Short-track-speed-skating-Events/5000m-relayMen/