In the latest episode of IAAF Inside Athletics, European 4x400m champions Jonathan, Kevin and Dylan Borlee of Belgium talk about their life as one of the leading families in athletics.
&ldquo;People sometimes think that we started because our dad wanted us to, but it was always our choice,&rdquo; said Kevin. &ldquo;I started running because I wanted to run fast. I don&rsquo;t think I would be here if I was just doing it for my dad or anybody else. I&rsquo;m just happy and glad to do it with my brothers.
&ldquo;As teammates you don&rsquo;t always want to have your opponent next to you,&rdquo; he added. &ldquo;But here I&rsquo;m privileged to have a brother but also two guys who can run really fast and can push me every day really hard.&rdquo;
&ldquo;I started athletics because of my brothers and sisters,&rdquo; said Dylan. &ldquo;In training they push me to be better every day. When I&rsquo;m down or have difficulties in training, they remind me that I can run 44 and it has helped me a lot to train hard. To be alongside them in the 4x400m or in training, for me it&rsquo;s a great thing.&rdquo;
&ldquo;When one of us is hurt or cannot compete, that can be hard for us,&rdquo; said Jonathan. &ldquo;We have to focus on athletics but we want our brothers to be in good shape as well. Or sometimes we&rsquo;ll be in a final together and one performs but the other is seventh or eighth which leads to mixed feelings and makes it hard to enjoy.&rdquo;
When asked about the possibility of younger brother Rayane joining them for the 4x400m at a future major championships, they were excited by the prospect.
&ldquo;An all-Borlee relay team in the future would be amazing,&rdquo; said Jonathan. &ldquo;He (Rayane) is still really young. He&rsquo;s good, he wants to be fast, and he knows that he has a lot of work to do. But if one day we could run together on a 4x400m at a European or World Championships, that would be amazing.&rdquo; 
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IAAF

In the latest episode of IAAF Inside Athletics, European 4x400m champions Jonathan, Kevin and Dylan Borlee of Belgium talk about their life as one of the leading families in athletics.

IAAF Inside Athletics – the Borlee brothers: ‘an all-Borlee relay would be amazing’

&ldquo;I stay very cool,&rdquo; says Jacques Borlee, the creator of one of the great dynasties in athletics. &ldquo;I know my sons, so when I watch them compete I know they&rsquo;re able to control stress. I&rsquo;m never nervous.&rdquo;
Here in Nassau, ahead of the IAAF/BTC World Relays Bahamas 2017, the Belgian certainly appears in a relaxed mood, flanked by sons Kevin and Dylan, who speak with glowing pride about their father. &nbsp;&nbsp;
&ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t choose my dad but I chose my coach,&rdquo; says Kevin, who has been guided to European 400m gold and world bronze by his father. &ldquo;For me he&rsquo;s one of the best. I know I&rsquo;ll run fast because of that and that&rsquo;s why I stick with him. In four or five years when I&rsquo;m done, he&rsquo;ll still be my dad, but right now he&rsquo;s my coach and that&rsquo;s how I think of him.&rdquo;
To say success runs in the family is an understatement: Kevin&rsquo;s twin brother, Jonathan, is a two-time world finalist over 400m, an Olympic finalist, and together they have been the driving force behind the Belgians 4x400m success in recent years.
The path was paved, of course, by older sister Olivia, who was part of the Belgian women&rsquo;s 4x100m team which won Olympic gold in 2008. Younger brother Dylan, 24, has been a more recent addition to the family&rsquo;s success, helping the 4x400m team to fourth in the Olympics last year, where, along with Julien Watrin, the brothers clocked a national record of 2:58.52
&ldquo;There&rsquo;s pride because we set a Belgian record and fourth is still a great achievement, but we are competitors and we want to win medals,&rdquo; says Dylan. &ldquo;There will always be a little bit of disappointment but we hope to erase that in Tokyo in three years.&rdquo;
The journey there starts tonight, with the Belgians getting their 2017 season under way in Nassau, where they finished third behind the US and Bahamas two years ago.
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s an amazing event,&rdquo; says Kevin. &ldquo;IAAF did a really good job bringing the championships here because it&rsquo;s early in the season, not a lot of athletes have raced, but with the Bahamian crowd the atmosphere is amazing so every athlete wants to run. It&rsquo;s fun &ndash; a good way to start.&rdquo;
Unfortunately they will be without Jonathan this year after the 29-year-old tweaked a hamstring earlier this week at their training camp in Florida, but the mood in their camp is nonetheless buoyant for the season ahead.
&ldquo;I think our team is capable of running faster,&rdquo; says Kevin. &ldquo;Rio wasn&rsquo;t the best race &ndash; Jonathan, Dylan and I were not in our best shape. If everything goes well this year and we can train and compete at our best, we can run faster than 2:58. What we want is the medal. If we run a national record it&rsquo;s good, but I&rsquo;d always rather have a medal.&rdquo;
Kevin admits the absence of his twin brother will be a blow, not just because of his speed, but the team spirit that&rsquo;s harnessed when they toe the line together.
&ldquo;When we race as individuals it&rsquo;s not running against him, it&rsquo;s running with each other,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;If we&rsquo;re in a semi-final, I&rsquo;m running against six others, not seven. It&rsquo;s strength for us, to run together, to handle the stress together and share the same passion for the race.&rdquo;
Dylan shares that belief. &ldquo;To be in the same race with them gives me strength,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;My best times are with them in the same race. I train with them every day and they taught me a lot and inspired me.&rdquo;
As did Jacques, a European indoor 200m silver medallist in 1983, who is known for a novel approach to building physical and mental strength in the off-season. Ahead of the 2012 season, he took the squad to Iceland for five days of trekking in isolated conditions. Ahead of the 2016 season he took them to the opposite extreme &ndash; the Grand Canyon in the US &ndash; for a week of cycling, running and climbing in the desert heat.
&ldquo;For fighting spirit it&rsquo;s very, very important,&rdquo; says Jacques, who is always the last person to offer his counsel before the team competes. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s important to use good words before the race. With my sons sometimes it&rsquo;s not easy, but I give them the fighting spirit.&rdquo;
So far this year, there have been no further wild adventures, just a six-week training camp in Australia followed by a period of warm-weather training in Florida, which the brothers hope will set them up for something special in 2017, if not this weekend then certainly at the IAAF World Championships in London.
And there every step of the way, cool as ever, will be the man who made it all possible.
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a special story,&rdquo; says Jacques. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s incredible.&rdquo;
Cathal Dennehy for the IAAF

“I stay very cool,” says Jacques Borlee, the creator of one of the great dynasties in athletics. “I know my sons, so when I watch them compete I know they’re able to control stress. I’m never nervous.”

Borlees hoping to add to family medal collection in Nassau

This is the event the home crowd will be waiting for, and brings possibly The Bahamas&rsquo; one realistic chance of victory.LaToy Williams, Demetrius Pinder, the evergreen Chris Brown and Michael Mathieu combined to finish second in front of an ecstatic local audience in the Thomas A Robinson National Stadium 12 months ago, chasing down the USA.Pinder is not part of the squad this time which means a place may be found for their Olympic hero Ramon Miller, whose heroic anchor leg there brought The Bahamas their first ever men&rsquo;s athletics gold medal.The USA will obviously not give up their title easily and from last year&rsquo;s winning quartet of David Verburg, Tony McQuay, Christian Taylor and LaShawn Merritt &ndash; who took the honours in 2:57:25, just 0.34 ahead of The Bahamas &ndash; only Taylor is missing.On hand to step in for Taylor is either Kyle Clemons, part of the USA&rsquo;s world indoor record-setting 4x400m team that won at the 2014 IAAF World Indoor Championships, or the venerable 2004 Olympic champion Jeremy Wariner.Trinidad and Tobago finished third 12 months ago when Lalonde Gordon, Renny Quow, Machel Cedenio and Jarrin Solomon ran a national record of 2:58.34 and the same four are likely to be donning the nation&rsquo;s famous red vests again.Great Britain finished as the best European team in fourth place in 2014 but this time the best bet from the Old Continent on paper could be Belgium.Belgium have all three of the famed Borlee brothers in their squad and younger sibling Dylan showed that he has grown in stature and can stand solidly alongside his older twin brothers Jonathan and Kevin after taking the 400m silver medal at the European Indoor Championships in March.Botswana may not have quite enough overall depth to challenge for the medals but are intriguing entrants with the talented Issac Makwala in their team.Along with the 4x100m, the first eight nations will get automatic qualification to the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.Phil Minshull for the IAAF

This is the event the home crowd will be waiting for, and brings possibly The Bahamas’ one realistic chance of victory.

Men's 4x400m preview – IAAF/BTC World Relays, Bahamas 2015

This year, all three Borlee brothers will be lining up in the same event at the Belgacom Memorial Van Damme, the IAAF Diamond League final in Brussels on 6 September. Twins Kevin and Jonathan, as well as their younger brother Dylan, will all compete in the 400m to provide a piece of athletics history.Never before have three brothers competed in the same event at a top level one-day meeting: not in either the former IAAF Grand Prix or IAAF Golden League series, or at an IAAF Diamond League meeting.At the forthcoming IAAF World Championships in Moscow, which will be held between 10 to 18 August, all the three brothers are also in the Belgian squad for the 4x400m. Kevin and Jonathan are reaching their best shape ahead of going to the IAAF World Championships. At the IAAF Diamond League meeting in London a week ago, Jonathan finished third in a seasonal best of 45.14, while Kevin won the National Championships the week before in 44.73 to become the best European performer of 2013. In that race, the 20-year-old Dylan Borlee set a personal best of 45.80.Organisers for the IAAF

Borlee brothers to make IAAF Diamond League history in Brussels

This year, all three Borlee brothers will be lining up in the same event at the Belgacom Memorial Van Damme, the IAAF Diamond League final in Brussels on 6 September. 