JAMAICA’S men’s 4x200m world record 1 minute, 18.63 seconds set at the inaugural World Relay Championships in the Bahamas in late May was one of three records ratified by the IAAF this past weekend.

The Jamaican team that was without triple world record holder Usain Bolt, which resulted in 2011 World Championships 100m champion Yohan Blake anchoring, broke the old 1 minute 18.68 seconds set in April 1994, 20 years ago, by four Americans running for the Santa Monica Track Club in Walnut, California.

That team comprised Michael Marsh, Leroy Burrell, Floyd Heard and Carl Lewis.

In May the team of Nickel Ashmeade, Warren Weir, Jermaine Brown and Blake rewrote the record on the way to winning the gold medal in the final of the event.

The Jamaicans are also the holders of the men’s 4x100m world record with the 36.84 seconds done at the London Olympic Games in 2012. They also have six of the top eight times all run since 2008 at the Beijing Olympic Games.

Meanwhile, the new time of 7 minutes 13.11 seconds in the men’s 4x800m done by an American All-Star team in Boston in February has been ratified as the new world indoor record, and American Mary Caine’s 2 minutes 35.80 seconds done in the 1,000m at the same meet is the new world junior record, shattering the previous 2 minutes 40.1 seconds done in 1982.