By John Bagratuni Aug 24, 2008, 2:16 GMT
Beijing - Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt torched the track with three golden world record runs in one of the most awesome athletics displays at the Olympics.
The 22-year-old won the 100m in 9.69 seconds, the 200m in 19.30 seconds and helped the 4x100 relay team to 37.10 seconds, a feat never achieved before the Beijing Games.
Three world records, three golds for Jamaica which ruled the sprints like never before and inflicted one of the most painful Olympic defeats ever on the United States.
The US team saw its gold medal tally of 14 from the 2007 worlds slashed in half to seven in the Olympic showcase sport, just one more than the Olympic worst of six from 1972 and 1976.
But that was still good enough for the US to lead the way with seven gold, nine silver and seven bronze for 23 medals from Russia (6-5-7, 18) and the stunning Jamaicans (6-3-2). Kenya had five golds including a first-ever in the marathon from Samuel Wanjiru.
Bolt's runs weren't the only world records in the spectacular Bird's Nest stadium as Svetlana Galkina-Samitova won the inaugural Olympic women's steeplechase in 8:51.81 and fellow-Russian Yelena Isinbayeva claimed a 24th career pole vault record with 5.05m.
'I was trying to do my best for the crowd. It makes me happy, so happy. I felt that I could not go out without the world record because of the support the crowd gave me,' Isinbayeva said.
Isinbayeva's jumps and flirtation with the crowd brought a smile back to Chinese faces on a Monday in which a sellout crowd was earlier left in stunned silence when China's poster boy Liu Xiang withdrew from the 110m hurdles with an Achilles tendon injury.
By then Bolt had already made his mark in the blue-riband 100m dash when he lowered his own world record by three hundredth although he eased up to celebrate early.
The whole world except Jacques Rogge was thrilled, with the Olympic supremo accusing Bolt of showboating.
Bolt continued to jog in the 200m but then went for all he had in the final of his favourite event to better the seemingly invincible world record of Michael Johnson - just hours after Johnson had explained at length why Bolt would not get the record.
The relay gold was the icing on the cake and completed humiliation for the US which dropped the baton in the heats after its main hope Tyson Gay crashed out in the 100m semis.
'I am a performer. I come down here to perform and if the people enjoy themselves I did well. This is my job. I won't change,' Bolt added in the direction of Rogge.
After all, the women's sprints went in similar fashion with Shelley-Ann Fraser leading a 100m sweep and Veronica Campbell-Brown also winning the 200m for Jamaica.
The US women also dropped the baton as American team officials swiftly announced a thorough post-Games investigation, as not even the medal sweeps in the men's 400m (where LaShawn Merritt stunned world and Olympic champion Jeremy Wariner) and the 400m hurdles could save the occasion.
'The relays and the sprints are our signature events. Like it or not, that's the way we are judged,' said US athletics supremo Doug Logan. 'We can win 35 medals in other events, but if we don't do well in the sprints it's something we feel extraordinarily bad about.'
Elsewhere, Kenenisa Bekele got a rare 5,000m and 10,000m double and fellow-Ethiopian Tirunesh Dibaba did the same for the first time on the women's side, with her 10,000m in 29:54.66 marking the second fastest run in the events history.
Other predictable winners included Irving Saladino of Panama in the long jump, but one of the biggest favourites, Croatian high-jumper Blanka Vlasic, was caught out cold when she lost on countback to Belgian European champion Tia Hellabaud after both had cleared 2.05m.
Hellebaud insisted that 'I am always ready at big events. I like the pressure. Of course I am happy with the gold and my performance.'
That could also apply to Briton Christine Ohuruogu, who beat tiring American Sanya Richards on the home stretch to add 400m gold to her world title over the distance.
However, not everyone was happy because Ohuruogu had required an appeals court ruling to be at the Olympics after having to serve a doping ban for missed tests.
Ukraine's Lyudmila Blonska, meanwhile, was comprehensively disgraced when she tested positive for steroids and stripped of the heptathlon silver.
The fast runs of the Jamaicans also led to some raised eyebrows, given that the nation still doesn't have a domestic doping agency in place.
But sports minister Olivia Grange said that, amongst others, one of the reasons for their success is that 'we eat healthy.' Whether that also applies to Bolt remains open, but he at least had a salad with his traditional (chicken) nuggets ahead of the relay.
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