Bolt’s last gold was won with the Jamaican relay team, who came first in the 4X100-meters race before Japan and Canada.
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It topped the bronze medal from the team of 2008 – the first men from Japan to win an Olympic track medal in a sprinting event.
“There you go, I am the greatest”, said Bolt, who this week said the Rio Olympics would be his last. I’m just proud of myself that I executed and got it done. I’m just happy, I’m just relieved.
After completing the triple triple he declared himself the greatest.
“It’s a relief because I’ve had all this pressure over the years to achieve gold medals, back-to-back all the time”.
“As soon as I got the baton, I knew I was going to win this one”.
“There you go”, Bolt said.
Victory was not guaranteed when Bolt took the baton for the anchor leg, but he powered down the straight to cross in 37.27 seconds before soaking up the acclaim from an adoring crowd.
In each of the past three Olympics, Usain Bolt has swept the 100-m, 200-m and 4×100-m relays.
It marked the ninth time since 1995 the USA men have been disqualified or failed to get the baton around at the Olympics or world championships.
“People always ask me if I’m unbeatable, and when it comes to a world championship, personally I think I am unbeatable”.
With the “mission accomplished”, Usain Bolt knelt on the track and kissed the finish line.
His nine gold medals takes him at the top of the list for Olympic track and field athletes and signed off an Olympic career unlike any before his. Nickel Ashmeade then handed the baton to Bolt.
The Jamaican sprinter is regarded as the fastest athlete ever timed and has won eight Olympic gold medals.
The disqualification came after the USA exchanged illegally outside the zone at the first change.
Gatlin called the incident “a twilight zone, a nightmare – all that hard work just crumbles”.
“I love competing. So I’m going to miss all of that”.
American Tyson Gay was the last man to beat Bolt in a major championship final-in the 200 meters at the 2007 worlds in Osaka-and, like numerous other sprinters in the final, he had nothing but praise for the Jamaican.
“A great sprinter”, said American Tyson Gay who, once upon a time, was Bolt’s biggest challenger. Bolt has said he will hang up his spikes after next year’s world championships in London. But it’s been a great career, I’ve done all I can do.
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Some among the thousands of fans who turned out on Friday to see him race in the final leg of his “triple triple” said they did not much care what he did next, so long as he continued to create goodwill for the country.
