Third Gold for Bolt as Jamaica Wins Relay
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
BEIJING — In yet another mind-boggling display of speed, Usain Bolt set another world record and won another Olympic gold medal, and this time got to share the glory with his Jamaican teammates.
Bolt and Asafa Powell blew away the field over the last two legs of the 400-meter relay today, leading Jamaica around the track in 37.10 seconds to break the 16-year-old world record by 0.3 second.
Bolt is now 3-for-3 in these Olympic sprints — as in three gold medals and three world records.
The bonus is that he got to bring Powell along for the ride. Powell held the world record in the 100-meter dash for about three years before Bolt broke it in May, but he is also well known for his history of poor performances in the biggest meets.
In this one, he got to do the honors, running the anchor leg, taking a clean handoff from Bolt and crossing the line almost a full second ahead of Trinidad and Tobago’s Richard Thompson to secure his first Olympic medal.
Japan finished third. The United States didn’t qualify after dropping the baton in qualifying.
