RIO DE JANEIRO
Usain Bolt bid goodbye with another gold medal. Ryan Lochte apologized on Instagram.
Bolt kneeled down and gave the track one final kiss, then flattened his hand, reached down and slapped the white number “3’’ painted at the starting line.
Three Olympics, three races at each, three gold medals every time.
He could have just as easily slapped the number “1.” That would need no explanation.
The man who transcended track and became a world-class celebrity bid a blazing-fast farewell to the Rio de Janeiro Games – and likely the Olympics altogether – Friday night with yet another anchor leg for the ages. He turned a close 4x100 relay race against Japan and the United States into a typical, Bolt-like runaway, helping Jamaica cross the line in 37.27.
“There you go,” he said. “I am the greatest.”
In the shadow of mighty Bolt, Allyson Felix achieved something unprecedented in women’s track and field Friday by winning her fifth Olympic gold medal.
And together with the rest of the 4x100-meter relay team, she brought the United States closer to its biggest medal haul in decades. The tally could have been higher, too, had the U.S. men’s 4x100 team not been disqualified after finishing third in the subsequent final.
The women’s team was smooth, despite the rocky path to the final. Running the second leg in the relay, Felix kept the U.S. up there with the mighty Jamaicans, before English Gardner and Tori Bowie brought the baton, tightly clenched in their hands, home for gold.
Felix had been bumped in the preliminary heats and lost the baton, but the U.S. team protested and got a second chance – a solo re-run that allowed them to qualify on times.
The drawback was they were given the worst lane of all, Lane 1, which has the tightest corners.
It didn’t bother them. The U.S. women brought it home in 41.02 seconds, and lead-off runner Tianna Bartoletta was already waiting for Bowie for a wild embrace and to celebrate the second-fastest time in history behind the world record that Felix and Co. set to winning gold at London in 2012. For Bartoletta, it was the second gold in Rio, after winning the long jump too.
As so often, Felix’s celebrations were mostly muted but her smile told it all. She had been through injury, the inability to defend her 200-meter title because she didn’t qualify at the U.S. trials and, almost, a DQ in the relay heats.
“Adversity sometimes makes you stronger,” she said. “We’ve each had a rocky road to get here and we came together to win the gold.”
She entered the games as one of just six women to have won four golds in track and field.
At the same time, silver for Jamaica allowed Veronica Campbell-Brown to win a medal at a fifth Olympics dating back to the 2000 Sydney Games.
It was not all perfection for the Americans though. In the pole vault Sandi Morris missed her third attempt at 4.90 meters by the smallest margin, allowing Ekaterini Stefanidi of Greece to win with 4.85 on a countback.
Bolt, of course, was unmatchable again, as he gained his ninth gold medal over three Olympics by anchoring the Jamaican 4x100 relay home. In one of the biggest surprises of the track program, Japan took silver – and had been leading before Bolt got the baton. Japanese anchorman Aska Cambridge held off the Americans, who were later disqualified for an exchange outside the zone in what has almost become a U.S. tradition by now. The U.S. team lodged a protest, hoping to get the medal back.
Still, the U.S. added to their haul. They now have 27 medals with two days to go, including 10 gold. The Kenyan team is next with 10 medals overall including five gold, and Jamaica has six gold among nine medals overall. The U.S. team had 29 overall at the London Games four years ago, and 40 at the boycott-marred 1984 Los Angeles Games.
The U.S. team has been on such a run, that Bowie takes it in stride.
“I glanced. I mean, I realize we’re leading the medal count. I mean, considering how big our country is I’m not too surprised,” she said with a laugh.
On Friday, the Kenyans were counting on a medal in the 5,000 meters – they got gold and silver. There was an upset as Vivian Cheruiyot powered past slumping favorite Almaz Ayana of Ethiopia and set an Olympic record of 14 minutes, 26.17 seconds.
The 32-year-old Cheruiyot adds the Olympic title to two world championships in the 5,000 and one in the 10,000. She took silver in the 5,000 at the London Games four years ago.
It initially appeared that Ayana would go for a second world record, after already setting a new mark in the 10,000 on the opening morning of the track program last week. But the efforts of the Olympic week appeared to catch up with her as she slumped late in the Saturday night race.
Ayana set off strongly and seemed to take the lead for good after one third of the race. But fatigue caught up with her and Cheruiyot and compatriot Hellen Obiri, who won silver, saw their chance.
These Rio Games will be remembered for Bolt’s dominance – and Lochte’s deception.
Breaking his silence Friday, Lochte said he was sorry for his behavior surrounding an early-morning incident at a gas station that in many ways has become the defining moment in Rio.
Brazilian police say Lochte was lying when he said he and three other swimmers were robbed.
Lochte said he should have been up front about the matter all along but maintained a gun was pointed at him by a stranger and that the swimmers were forced to pay money to leave the gas station. Police said the swimmers had vandalized the gas station.
The embarrassing imbroglio offended the Olympic hosts and overshadowed the U.S. swimmers’ dominance in Rio, relegating to the margins Michael Phelps’ medal haul in his own Olympic farewell.
Other highlights from Day 14 of the Rio Games:
GOLF GOLD : At the Olympic Golf Course, Inbee Park will take a two-stroke lead into Saturday’s final round after keeping her composure in strong wind and making two late birdies to regain the lead and post a 1-under 70. Lydia Ko, a 19-year-old Kiwi and the No. 1 player in women’s golf put herself in contention thanks to the first hole-in-one of her career. Also two shots back in the final group is Gerina Piller.
WRESTLING UPSET: Defending Olympic and world champion Jordan Burroughs was stunned in the quarterfinals of men’s freestyle wrestling. It was the third international loss for Burroughs, who won gold in London in 2012 and whose charismatic, social media-friendly persona has made him the face of wrestling in the U.S.
SNACK ATTACK : Talk about the shoddy construction or the filthy water. Just don’t rip on Brazilians’ favorite snack, called Biscoito Globo. Residents of Rio de Janeiro have been irked by bad review of the stuffy, puffy treats. Just like they took offense to Hope Solo’s tweets about the Zika virus. Also annoying locals have been comments about why coffee cups and men’s swimsuits are so small here.
