Athletics - Team Great Britain

General
Great Britain have competed at a record 23 out of 24 editions of the Olympic Games to feature the men's 4x100m relay prior to Tokyo, with the United States of America their nearest rival on 22 appearances. The US team, however, boast the lion's share of Olympic medals with 20 in total compared to second-placed Great Britain's 12 podium finishes. Great Britain are the only team other than the US team to have won more than one Olympic gold medal in the event, with triumphs at the 1920 and 1936 Games. They won a silver medal the last time the Games were held in Japan, in 1964 in Tokyo.

The British team's most recent Olympic medal was bronze at Beijing 2008, where they originally finished fourth before being upgraded to bronze in 2017 following the disqualification of the Russian team. At Rio 2016, the team were disqualified in their heat after third runner Matthew Hudson-Smith was judged to have been outside the takeover zone when he began running. Four years earlier in London they had just missed out on the podium, finishing 0.13s behind bronze medallists Trinidad and Tobago.

Great Britain progressed from the heats at the 2019 World Championships in Doha but failed to finish the final. The team had claimed bronze medals at the previous three editions of the tournament, and last celebrated a world title in 1997.