It was golden glory for Jamaica on the penultimate day of the IAAF World Championships in Beijing, China on Saturday, with both the women's and men's relay teams winning convincingly.
First, the women - Veronica Campbell Brown, Natasha Morrison, Elaine Thompson, and Shelly-Ann Fraser Pryce - outran their American counterparts to take their 4x100 metre relay showdown in a championship record of 41.07 seconds.
One of the high points of the race was the duel between Morrison and American great, Allyson Felix. Having comfortably taken care of her senior counterpart, Morrison gave the Jamaicans the distinct advantage which was never surrendered, Fraser Pryce streaking away to lead her team to another gold medal, and her second of the tournament.
The Jamaican men, waiting their turn, were calmly watching the women's race on a television screen before they stepped onto the track for their own event, and buoyed by that magnificent performance, lined up for their moment with great confidence.
They started with Nesta Carter, who handed over to Asafa Powell, who had the dangerous Justin Gatlin to contend with. A good leg from Powell meant that Jamaica was in a good position at this stage, but with work still to do.
Powell handed over to Nickel Ashmeade who was now up against America's Tyson Gay, a sprinting legend, in the America-Jamaica duel.
It was still a tight contest, going into the final change-over, where Ashmeade passed the baton to Jamaica's super star, Usain Bolt, and Gay to Mike Rodgers for the Americans.
If the Americans were to stand a chance of making this competitive at the end, the change-over from Gay to Rodgers would have had to be flawless. Unfortunately for them, however, it was anything but that, with Rodgers taking the baton outside of the box.
The athletes were not aware of the mistake at this stage, as Bolt streaked away to the finish line giving Jamaica victory in a world leading time of 37.36 secs.
Usain Bolt now has 19 Global medals, with 17 Gold !
He has 11 World Championship Gold medals and 6 Olympic Gold medals. Interestingly, Bolt completed his 5th treble in Global competition in Beijing on Saturday (August 29, 2015).
It all started in Beijing at the 2008 Olympic Games where he won the sprint double and the sprint relay; he repeated the feat at the Berlin World Championships in 2009; in London at the Olympics in 2012; and at the World Championships in 2013 and 2015 in Moscow and Beijing respectively. The only blip on Bolt's radar was when he false started in the 100 metres in Daegu in 2011, and only won the 200 metres and the 4x100 metre relay gold medals.
After initially thinking they had secured the second place, the Americans discovered, to their great disappointment, that they had been disqualified under IAAF's rule 170.7 - the same rule which disqualified the Netherlands and Dafne Schippers in the women's sprint relay final - giving the Chinese team, 38.01 secs, an improbable silver medal, having "over-performed" to take third place. Their promotion now meant that the Canadians, who finished in fourth place, 38.13 secs, had now moved up to the bronze medal spot on the podium.
Jamaica has interest in the women's and men's 4 x400 metre relay finals on Sunday morning's - local time - final day of competition.
Jamaica is second in the medal standings with 11 medals, comprising 6 gold, 2 silver and 3 bronze, behind Kenya with 13 medals with 6 gold, 4 silver and 3 bronze and the USA third with 16 medals, 5 gold, 5 silver and 6 bronze.
.jpg)
All feeds
