PARIS: The United States blazed to the gold medal in the Olympic women’s 4x400 metres relay, clocking the second quickest time in history and stretching the country’s remarkable victory streak in the event to eight in a row.
Fielding a star-studded foursome featuring Olympic champions Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and Gabby Thomas, the Americans clocked three minutes 15.27 seconds, narrowly missing the world record set by the former Soviet Union in 1988.
Alexis Holmes leaves the rest of the field way behind as she crosses the line to give the United States gold.
A week after Femke Bol led the Dutch to victory in the mixed 4x400 relay with a remarkable anchor leg, the gap was too great for her to make up and the Netherlands had to settle for silver in 3:19.50. Britain claimed bronze in 3:19.
In men’s section, the United States continued their dominance of the Olympic 4x400 metres relay but only just, as Rai Benjamin held off Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo in a thrilling last-leg battle between two individual gold medallists.
The US as expected, dropped Quincy Wilson, the 16-year-old who struggled badly in the heats, but did not bring in individual 400m champion Quincy Hall, instead adding 400m hurdles champion Benjamin to run the final leg.
Rai Benjamin holds off Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo to win the race in an Olympic record of 2:54:43 seconds.
Chris Bailey took them out but handed over in third to Vernon Norwood who ran a stormer in the heats and repeated it in the final to send Bryce Deadmon off in the lead.
Botswana’s Anthony Pesela, however, closed the gap to set up a dramatic finale. Agencies
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