It leaves Bolt – who will retire in 2017 – level with Carl Lewis and Paavo Nurmi on a total of nine Olympic gold medals, a record for a track and field athlete.
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(From Left) USA’s Tori Bowie, USA’s Tianna Bartoletta, USA’s Allyson Felix and USA’s English Gardner pose by the results board after they won the women’s 4x100m relay final during the athletics event at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games at the Olympic Stadium in Rio de Janeiro on August 19, 2016.
Gay, part of the US 4×100 team that was disqualified in Friday’s final, held out hope that with Bolt’s pending retirement, he would have a chance at gold in Tokyo in 2020.
The women’s team was smooth, despite the rocky path to the final.
When Bolt received the yellow baton from Ashmeade for his final run down the straightaway, he was even, or maybe a step behind Aska Cambridge of Japan and Trayvon Bromell of the United States.
The situation went from bad to worse, though, when they were disqualified along with Trinidad and Tobago.
It didn’t bother them.
For Bartoletta, it was her second gold in Rio, after she also won the long jump.
As so often, Felix’s celebrations were mostly muted but her smile told it all. The lineup of Courtney Okolo, Taylor Ellis-Watson, Francena McCorory and Phyllis Francis got the baton around cleanly, avoiding any mishaps of the variety that the 400-meter relay team experienced in its first-round heat on Thursday.
Her husband and coach said Suhr had been sick and was coughing up blood before the final.
It was the third consecutive Olympic 4x100m gold medal for Jamaica. In the pole vault Sandi Morris missed her third attempt at 4.90 meters by the smallest margin, allowing Ekaterini Stefanidi of Greece to win with 4.85 on a countback.
American Tyson Gay was the last man to beat Bolt in a major championship final – in the 200 meters at the 2007 worlds in Osaka – and, like numerous other sprinters in the final, he had nothing but praise for the Jamaican.
Canada took the bronze medal in their place.
Trinidad & Tobago – like the United States – were disqualified.
“We are making history out here”, Muhammad said of the USA team’s gold rush.
Still, the US added to their haul. The greatest ever goes as he should go, as a gold medallist.
The U.S. will face Serbia, which rolled over Australia 87-61, on Sunday before the Rio Games close and the world looks ahead to the Tokyo Games in 2020.
The American women’s 4×100 relay team will try to capitalize on its reprieve following a collision on a handoff at the Olympic track stadium, and Germany and Sweden meet in the first all-European Olympic women’s soccer final. “I just hate that it happened to us in this fashion”.
“I’m going to stay up late and have fun”, Bolt said. “They said Justin got the stick before the zone”. There was an upset as Vivian Cheruiyot powered past slumping favorite Almaz Ayana of Ethiopia and set an Olympic record of 14 minutes, 26.17 seconds.
Bolt has not said if he would consider the post, and in any case has committed to run at next year’s World Championships before bowing out from competition. She took silver in the 5,000 at the London Games four years ago.
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Ayana had smashed the 10,000m world record in Rio but was unable to do the track distance double and had to settle for the bronze medal.
