But over the final 30 minutes of Saturday’s topsy-turvy night at the Olympic track, both Americans came away with the prizes they’d been wishing for all along.
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Felix picked up her ninth career Olympic medal and sixth gold medal, the most by any USA woman in track and field.
China is second with 65 medals including 22 gold, while Britain is third with 60 medals, including 24 gold.
Jamaica’s second place meant 100-meter and 200-meter victor Elaine Thompson added to her Rio medal collection, although not with the gold she desired.
The last man to win both distance races in consecutive Olympics was Finnish great Lasse Viren at the 1972 Munich and 1976 Montreal Games.
“I really want the opportunity to pour into my children and start seeing what they have in either sports or arts or academics and try to find out what their talents and skills are and really try to get those things developed”, she said. Neymar brought the host nation to its knees with a shootout goal to bring home a gold medal against its recently revered rival.
The US women were the leaders going in to the event with a time of 3:21:42 in the preliminaries while Jamaica came in just under a second behind them with 3:22:38.
Friday night at Olympic Stadium, English Gardner had all of those fronts covered during Team USA’s gold-medal 4x100m relay performance.
She was denied a chance to repeat as 200 meters champion in the Olympics as she was edged by Jenna Prandini by.01 second at the U.S. Olympic trials, but ran a world-leading 49.68 to secure a spot in the 400.
Natasha Hastings, Phyllis Francis, Allyson Felix and Courtney Okolo react after winning gold in the women’s 4×400-meter relay on day 15 of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games at the Olympic Stadium on August 20, 2016 in Rio de Janeiro.
English Gardner, Allyson Felix, Tianna Bartoletta and Tori Bowie of the United States celebrate winning gold in the Women’s 4 x 100m Relay Final on Day 14 of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games at the Olympic Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Yes, the United States may have relay problems – see, the men’s 4×100, which flamed out again the night before – but this certainly isn’t one of them. A review ensued, Chelimo was reinstated to silver and Lagat dropped to fifth – a bummer for the elder statesman of the USA track team, but some sort of sign for the team: Even when it lost, it won. “Did I really just win did I beat that caliber of field in the Olympic final?'” said Centrowitz, who edged Taoufik Makhloufi of Algeria (3:50.11) and Nick Willis of New Zealand (3:50.24). “Nothing went according to schedule”.
Merritt looked equally relieved after the men’s 4×400. Ayana, who set an incredible world record to win the 10,000m earlier in the week, had to be happy with bronze.
Arman Hall, Tony McQuay and Gil Roberts set up Merritt for the victory.
As Felix had done minutes earlier, Merritt took a narrow lead and opened it way up.
In addition to her heavy duty Olympics hardware, Felix was able to earn a college degree from the University of Southern California, in her hometown of Los Angeles, despite deciding to compete professionally before college.
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Semenya of South Africa won her first Olympic gold in a personal-best of 1 minute, 55.28 seconds, a national record and one of the top 20 times ever in the two-lap race. The Jamaicans brought the baton home.86 seconds later, and the Bahamas took bronze in 2:58.49.
