What Is a Relay Baton?

Everything else in a relay is negotiable. The start can be uneven, the splits can vary, a runner can even stumble and recover. The one thing that cannot happen is the baton failing to cross the finish line in a legal runner's hand, because the baton, not any single athlete, is what the rules actually track from gun to tape. That single requirement is why relay teams drill handoffs more than almost anything else in practice, and why a fast team can still lose on a clean pass gone half a second early. A relay baton itself is a plain object, a smooth hollow tube with no grip aids and no electronics beyond an optional timing chip, but the rules around it are exact: its size, its weight, where it can legally change hands, and what happens the moment it hits the ground. Here is what the baton actually is, the legal specs behind it, and the details that turn an ordinary exchange into a disqualification.