SAINT-DENIS, France — A runaway win in one relay and another that was oh-so-close. A long-awaited celebration for France and a high jump competition that felt like it would never end.
What tied it all together on a frantic final day of Olympic track and field at the Stade de France was the most familiar sight of all: Americans on the medal stand, over and over again.
Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and Gabby Thomas brought the curtain down on track by romping to a win in the women’s 4×400 relay Saturday for America’s 34th overall medal at the track and 14th gold. Thomas was part of the U.S. gold-medal win a night earlier in the 4×100 women’s relay.
Turning the race into a laugher on laps 2 and 3, the 400-hurdles and 200-meter gold medalists helped the U.S. finish more than 4 seconds ahead of second place and only .1 second off the world record set by the USSR in 1988.
The winning time: 3 minutes, 15.27 seconds.
“I think this generation of track and field is just on a different level,” said McLaughlin-Levrone, who now has four gold medals in four events (to go with six world-record runs) over her career. “Everything is improving, including us, including our technique, including how we prepare. I don’t think anything is impossible at this point.”
In another race involving a different sort of .1-second margin, American hurdle gold medalist Rai Benjamin edged out 200-meter champion Letsile Tebogo of Botswana in the men’s relay.
“I calculated that run very well, to a ‘T,’” Benjamin said. “I have a really good, high track IQ on people and how they run and how to do a quick time, so I didn’t have to get out too hard. Let’s just save it up to come home.’”
Two more close races lead to American gold and, finally, a medal for France
Fittingly, the final day of a track mee t full of close calls and surprises featured two more races decided by .01 seconds — an 800-meter win by Kenya’s Emmanuel Wanyonyi and a 100-meter hurdles victory for American Masai Russell.
Russell edged out Cyrena Samba-Mayela of France. A heartbreaker, maybe, but it marked the home country’s first and only medal of the track meet and brought as big a burst of cheers as anything on a day where seven medals were awarded.
“I want to celebrate with the French public because they supported me and pushed me throughout all these Olympic Games,” Samba-Mayela said.
Wackiness in the high jump pit and a tiebreaker for $50,000
Over in the high-jump pit, there were moments where it looked like the gold wouldn’t be decided before Sunday’s closing ceremony.
New Zealand’s Hamish Kerr and America’s Shelby McEwen each missed three times at 2.38 meters, triggering a jump-off at the same height for the title.
They both missed, which started the bar moving down.