After a six-year break from competition, the 4×100 meter relay of the German para sprinters set a world record at the local sports festival in Leverkusen.
Phil Grolla from Wolfsburg, Johannes Floors and Markus Rehm from Leverkusen and Felix Streng, who lives in London and is starting for Wetzlar, were 21 hundredths faster than the USA in the previous world record in 40.52 seconds. Floors and Streng in the sprint and Rehm in the long jump are also individual Paralympic champions.
“It was cool to do a relay like this again. I think that was the case last time in Rio. I hope we’ll have it back in the program in Paris,” said Streng. The German quartet with Streng, Rehm, Floors and David Behre won gold at the 2016 Paralympics in Brazil.
After that, the discipline was removed from the Paralympic and World Championship programs and replaced by a mixed relay. “We were hoping for a bit of the world record,” admitted Rehm: “But we last did it a few years ago. And it was just as much fun as it was then.”