Bolt won his ninth Olympic medal Friday night, anchoring the Jamaicans’ winning 4×100 relay team in what he has insisted will be his last Olympic race.
Advertisement
Bolt raised his baton to the heavens as he crossed the line before embracing his team-mates, also including Asafa Powell and Yohan Blake, before the quartet set off on a lap of honour, draped in Jamaican flags.
Carter ran the leadoff leg for Jamaica’s 4x100m team when Bolt anchored them to a gold medal at Beijing’s Bird’s Nest stadium, where Bolt took the sport by storm with his first treble.
The 29-year-old won three golds in Beijing, and now is just one gold away from winning his ninth in Rio.
Bolt, 29, the fastest man on the planet, has now finished his sweep of 100, 200 and 4×100 metres gold medals at three consecutive Olympics Games.
“I’m just happy and relieved”, he added. “I’m extremely proud of myself”. “It’s come true”, said Bolt, who overcame a hamstring injury earlier in the summer, then shined throughout a seven-day, seven-race stint in Rio, counting all the heats.
“I’ve done it and it’s unreal”. The 36.84, however, in the relay was a world record mark.
Counting all the preliminaries, finals and his approximately nine-second blast down the stretch in Friday’s race, Bolt has spent 325 seconds, a tad less than 5½ minutes, running on the track at the Olympics since he made his debut in Beijing eight years ago.
The disqualification for the U.S occurred after replays showed an illegal baton exchange, taking place outside of the zone from the very first change.
“I’m going to miss the crowd, the energy and the competition”, he said.
“I’ve proven to the world I’m the greatest”, Bolt said.
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. Jamaica won the gold medal.
Although we watched everything from swimming to basketball to gymnastics together as per tradition, we counted down the days until track began at the Bird’s Nest.
They had just won Jamaica’s fifth medal in the women’s 4x100m, but they all knew just what this meant for their countryman and their nation.
Bolt had started the evening on the podium with his 200m gold medal and any chance of that being his last visit disappeared with the gun. They gave Jamaica a narrow lead before handing the baton to the world record holder.
Advertisement
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.
