Usain Bolt completes triple gold worlds

By NBC Sports | NBC on Yahoo! Sports – 7 hours ago

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Usain Bolt anchored the Jamaican 4×100-meter relay to gold in the final event of the World Track and Field Championships on Sunday, his third title of the meet that matched him with three of the greatest U.S. sprinters of all time.

Bolt took the baton close to even with American Justin Gatlin, but the U.S.’ final exchange was not as clean as Jamaica’s. Bolt opened up daylight quickly and held on to win in 37.36 seconds. Jamaica has won the 4×100 at five straight major international championships dating to the 2008 Olympics.

“I wasn’t really worried about Justin,” Bolt said, according to The Associated Press. “I knew if he got the baton in front of me, I could catch him. So it was just going out there to run as fast as possible.”

The U.S. got silver in 37.66. Great Britain crossed third but was disqualified for a pass out of the exchange zone, elevating Canada to bronze.

Bolt went three for three in gold medals (100, 200, 4×100) for the fourth time at a worlds or Olympics in his career. He now owns eight career World Championships gold medals, tying the record also held by Allyson Felix, Michael Johnson and Carl Lewis.

Bolt also won his 10th career World Championships medal of any color, matching him with Lewis for the most by a man. Only Jamaican-turned-Slovenian Merlene Ottey has won more (14). Bolt said at the London Olympics he lost all respect for Lewis, who has criticized Jamaica’s drug-testing program.

“I’ll continue dominating,” Bolt said, according to the AP. I’ll continue to work hard. For me, my aim is to continue hard into the greatness thing.”

Bolt celebrated the 4×100 relay victory by flashing a smile after crossing the finish line, flipping the golden baton, taking off his Puma spikes, throwing them into the Moscow crowd and performing a barefoot dance on the track.

“I’m not even sure which country it’s from,” Bolt said, according to the AP. “It just went along with the music, so I did it.”

The U.S. finished the nine-day meet with the most overall medals (25 to Russia’s 17) but did not lead (or co-lead) the gold medal count for the first time at a worlds since the first edition in 1983.

Russia won seven golds, and the U.S. took six, its lowest total since 2001.

Jamaica also won the women’s 4×100 relay in 41.29 seconds on Sunday. The U.S., slowed by a poor relay exchange from Alexandria Anderson to third leg English Gardner, crossed second in 42.75, .03 of a second behind France. France was disqualified about three horus later, handing silver to the U.S. and bronze to Great Britain. Jamaican anchor Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce became the second woman to win three golds at a single worlds, joining Felix.

Thanks to Bolt and Fraser-Pryce, Jamaica swept the six sprint events for the first time.

- Nick Zaccardi, NBCS Olympic Talk