Usain Bolt bid a blazing-fast farewell to the Rio de Janeiro Games – and likely the Olympics altogether – Friday night with yet another anchor leg for the ages.
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The disqualification put Team GB in fifth place.
In the women’s high jump final, Americans Vashti Cunningham, Chaunte Lowe and Inika McPherson are all looking to get onto the medal stand. Cunningham is the daughter of former National Football League quarterback Randall Cunningham, and at just 18 years old a big night in Rio could be a harbinger of things to come in the sport.
The runner boasts nine gold medals after Jamaica clocked a time of 37.27 seconds on Friday.
It didn’t bother them.
The victory gave Bolt a total haul of nine gold in three Olympic Games, a record he now shares with Finnish distance runner Paavo Nurmi and American sprinter and long jumper Carl Lewis.
As so often, Felix’s celebrations were muted but her smile told it all.
Jamaica’s 4x100m relay triumph concluded a day of athletics in which seven gold medals were decided in Rio’s Olympic stadium.
“There you go”, he said. “We’ve each had a rocky road to get here and we came together to win the gold”.
For Bolt there is just one more season to go.
It was not all perfection for the Americans though. Bolt, achoring the race like he always does, got Jamaica home in just 37.27 seconds. His record in Olympic finals improved to nine victories over nine events. Nobody has done that before, and nobody’s on the horizon to do it again soon.
“I’ve proven to the world I’m the greatest”, says Bolt. “I am the greatest”.
The U.S. originally missed out on qualifying for the final but was allowed a solo re-run of its heat on Thursday when officials ruled its runners were obstructed.
Tyson Bromell ran the anchor leg, falling over the finish line and nursing his injured foot while his teammates celebrated what they thought was a bronze medal. “Today I said “I am not going to lose”, – Cheruiyot rightly believed this was her time. “You work so hard with your teammates, guys you compete against nearly all year long”.
Gatlin called the incident “a twilight zone, a nightmare – all that hard work just crumbles”.
On Monday, Bolt reclaimed his 100 metre Olympic title after winning the final in 9.81 seconds.
“Relief. I’ve had all this pressure over the years”.
“Last year we were fourth, and USA got DQ’d and we got a medal”, he said. China remain in the third position with 22 gold medals.
Bolt insisted all of his gold medals were special. The U.S. team had 29 overall at the London Games four years ago, and 40 at the boycott-marred 1984 Los Angeles Games.
“I glanced. I mean, I realize we’re leading the medal count”.
Great Britain secured their first gold medal in the women’s hockey event as the they defeated World No.1 Netherlands in a dramatic penalty shootout (2-0) after they ended normal time on level terms with a 3-3 scoreline.
Japan won the silver medal, finishing.33 seconds behind.
This is not the Bolt of eight years ago, when he stormed to his 100m and 200m world records in Beijing, nor even of four years ago when he blitzed the field in London.
Day 15 of the Rio Olympics featured plenty of upsets and surprises, including the USA men losing in heartbreaking fashion to Italy in men’s volleyball and world No. 1 wrestler Jordan Burroughs falling the quarterfinals.
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American Tyson Gay was the last man to beat Bolt in a major championship final – in the 200 metres at the 2007 worlds in Osaka – and, like numerous other sprinters in the final, he had nothing but praise for the Jamaican.
