Marileidy Paulino and her teammates are celebrating a silver finish…

The 24-year-old Dominican athlete, 24-year-old Lidio Andrés Feliz, 24-year-old Anabel Medina and 21-year-old Alexander Ogando gave the Dominican Republic a silver medal in the first-ever Mixed 4x400m relay at the Tokyo Games.

Paulino and her teammates finished the race with a time of 3:10.21, just behind Poland’s team, which set an Olympic record with a time of 3:09.87.

The United States team, the favorites heading into the Olympics, had to settle for the bronze, coming in just behind the Dominican Republic with a time of 3:10.22.

The event, which features two men and two women per team and made its World Championships debut in 2019, contains a certain level of unpredictability as there are no gender rules governing the order in which athletes choose to race.

Poland had experimented with its lineup in the Doha title race, placing men in the first two legs, but they finished fifth. The team opted to place its two women competitors in the middle legs of Saturday’s race, as did the other eight teams.