Felix, who also won gold in the 4-x-100 relay and silver in the 400 meters, ran the final leg of the race as the Americans won in 3 minutes, 19.06 seconds.
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The win for long jump gold medal victor Tianna Bartoletta, Allyson Felix, English Gardner and Tori Bowie in a time of 41.01 seconds was the US’s second consecutive success in the event – a feat all the more impressive given it was occupying the unfavored lane 1 on Friday. Over the second and third laps, Americans Natasha Hastings and Phyllis Francis held big leads, only to have them dwindle as they legged out their final meters.
Felix, running the second leg, kept the USA up there with the silver medalist Jamaicans, before English Gardner and Tori Bowie brought the baton, tightly clenched in their hands, home for gold.
Jamaica took silver, and Great Britain bronze.
Allyson Felix is targeting next year’s World Championships after bagging a record sixth Olympic gold as the United States defended their 4x400m crown in Rio de Janeiro on Saturday.
Lagat became the oldest person in a running event to win a medal at the Olympics.
In the men’s Olympic 4×100-meter relay final, Justin Gatlin’s hand first made contact with the baton outside of the “takeover zone” when he handed off to Mike Rodgers, which resulted in disqualification.
Her medal collection will remain with her parents.
She entered the games as one of six women to have won four golds in track and field.
Plenty more medals could be on the horizon, too, with Allyson Felix going for her sixth career Olympic gold medal when she runs in the 4×400 relay.
Their only goal was to beat Chinas eighth-place time of 42.70 seconds, and that was no problem for a team that had two members Bartoletta and Felix who were on the team that set the world record (40.82 seconds) at the London Games in 2012.
“People are at home watching – watching 2012, watching 2008”, said Felix, 30, who competed in her fourth Olympics and now has nine total medals. “I am so blessed”, she said afterwards.
As Felix had done minutes earlier, Merritt took a narrow lead and opened it way up.
Some of those medals, though, came and went and came back. But on back-to-back nights, she took relay gold. Arman Hall, Tony McQuay, Gil Roberts and LaShawn Merritt were timed in 2:57.30, ahead of Jamaica (2:58.16) and the Bahamas (2:58.49).
WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL GETS MEDAL: Karch Kiraly’s top-ranked US women’s volleyball team has earned an Olympic bronze medal, hardly the color the Americans planned for when they came to Brazil chasing the program’s first gold in history.
The win marks a 20-year unbeaten reign in the event for the United States.
Thomas Rohler of Germany won his first major title with his penultimate throw of 90.30 meters to clinch the javelin gold medal.
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Nazarov, world silver medallist in Beijing a year ago, heaved a best of 78.68 metres to finish ahead of Belarus’ convicted doping cheat Ivan Tsikhan (77.79m).
