Sprinting is a tough sport. Athletes have to run at their utmost best, yet they might lose if their competitor is just 0.01s faster. But this sport goes to a new level of insane when it transitions into a team sport. Yes, we are talking about relay races. It can be extremely tricky to find the flow and win when four different athletes with different styles have to run together. But what happened on day 3 of the BUCS Indoor Athletics Championships on February 16th was just over the top.

The regular ups and downs and the overtake of the relay races never fail to add extra dirt to the track, but this Sunday left the fans awestruck as a Sheffield runner went all acrobatic after he was handed the baton. The 4×200 runner, who his teammate had just handed the baton, was imbalanced and hit the dirt, but thanks to the laws of physics, momentum, and the athlete’s athleticism, he did a somersault and got back on his feet.

And this is not it. Not only did he race after that, he raced fast, eventually being the first to cross the finish line. Talk about an adrenaline rush!!! Of course, pulling off a gymnastics move in a track and field event will attract a lot of attention and criticism. Journalist Alex Seftel was the first to comment on the incident, taking to X to astonishment over the team winning the race despite the hurdle.

He shared a video of what happened and tweeted, “🤯 THEY STILL WON THE RACE 🤯. Absolute relay carnage at the British Universities (BUCS) Indoor Athletics with injuries, dropped batons, and acrobatics. Here, Sheffield win their heat despite a mid-race somersault but just miss out on qualifying for the final based on times.”

Now track and field fans are somewhat harsh so seeing gymnastics at the race has sparked quite a debate over the internet, landing the national team, Sheffield, in debate. Twitter notifications have been on the screen ever since the incident with fans beating the move left and right.

Fans react to acrobatics at the Track and Field event

Opinions have been varying over the somersault, especially when the athlete has gone over to win the race. One fan is delighted to see it and feels that this should be a permanent thing at the relays. Gareth Burns tweeted, “That’s how u hand over a baton. All relays should require an tuck and roll start.”

This incident brought a smile to Jaycee’s face, another X user. He also took notice of the Liverpool athlete finishing with the cramp; he said, “This one made me smile and wonder how you develop such a mindset—not just the team that won doing a somersault on the track but the one winning second with probably a cramped leg.”

World Athletics Hub’s admin also had quite a laugh at the event and felt the need to bring the 4×200 to World Indoors, saying, “This is insane 🤣😭😭. Get the 4×200 to World Indoors.” Some people also took a sarcastic tone towards what happened, like this one user who said, “Of course… Leave it to Great Britain to turn Track and Field into Crumpets & Bollocks 😭😭😭😭🤣🤣🤣”

Honestly, when you look at the video, there’s so much chaos hidden in those frames, so much happening: the somersault, the injuries, and Sheffield winning this race but missing the qualification for the final based on times that the Olympic & World Champion, Michael Johnson, got it best with his “A lot going on here!” tweet.

Personally, it is open to debate whether the somersault is justified or not but having the presence of mind to think of it in those milliseconds and actually pulling it off and then going on to win the race is commendable.