Athletics at the 1920 Antwerpen Summer Games:

The British team was the favorite and won with ease. Bevil Rudd, who had won the 400 earlier in the Games, ran a great anchor lap for South Africa to bring Britain’s margin of victory to less than a second. There were only six teams entered, but for some reason, the officials conducted two semi-finals with three teams in each. All teams in the semi-finals advanced to the final, in what were surely the most meaningless semi-finals in Olympic history.