Running the anchor in the 4-by-400-meter race, the women from team United States of America were able to win a gold medal, earning Felix her sixth gold medal and helping her break the record.
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A day after a near-disaster with a dropped baton, defending champions the United States made no mistake on Friday when it won the women’s Olympic 400-meter relay and Allyson Felix became the first woman to collect five athletics gold medals.
Jamaica took silver and Britain got bronze in the relay race.
Bolt led Jamaica to victory in the 400-meter men’s relay Friday night, winning a third gold medal for the third consecutive Olympics.
The US quartet was disqualified in their heat for dropping the baton but later allowed to race again in a time trial after it emerged they had been bumped during the race.
“Doing my victory lap, I literally kept screaming to everyone I know, ‘Are you kidding me?'” Centrowitz said.
Team USA’s women’s 4x100m relay team had to overcome more than the disqualification in the preliminaries, which they challenged and had overturned, punching a ticket to the finals to win gold.
“Adversity sometimes makes you stronger”, she said.
Her six gold medals move her into a tie for fifth among all women in any sport.
“I can look back on the things that I’ve accomplished and really be proud and really grateful for what track and field has brought to my life”.
NPR reports that at the Beijing 2008 Summer Games, the team dropped the baton and didn’t reach the final; the squad’s silver medal finish in the London 2012 Olympics was voided past year over the doping suspensions (both Gay and Gatlin); and Gay was disqualified in 2009 for a bad handoff.
Running in the inside lane in the final, the USA clocked 41.01 seconds, the second fastest time ever. Just more than 10 minutes before the team was to report to the call room, she prepared to practice hand-offs with Allyson Felix. The wins gave her gold medals No. 5 and 6 a record for a woman on the Olympic track.
The U.S. team of Courtney Okolo, Natasha Hastings, Phyllis Francis and Felix led the entire race and finished in 3 minutes, 19.06 seconds.
The U.S. team lodged a protest, hoping to get the medal back.
Centrowitz was considered a contender in the 1,500 and in this case, contending meant winning a race in a leisurely pace of 3 minutes, 50 seconds for a.11 margin over Taoufik Makhloufi of Algeria.
“We didn’t get to see them because of how everything played out, but hopefully we can”, added Felix.
The United States women’s volleyball team won a bronze medal after its 3-1 defeat of the Netherlands.
Cheruiyot earned the gold in medal 14:26.17, and Obiri the silver in 14:29.77. The Olympics are the pinnacle of an athlete’s dream and the runners work unbelievably hard to train and discipline their bodies to compete at this level.
Ruth Beitia of Spain won the women’s high jump at a height of 1.97 meters, while Germany’s Thomas Rohler was the javelin gold medalist with a 90.30-meter throw.
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