Usain Bolt concluded the London Olympics undefeated and unparalleled. He crossed the finish line first in his finale at Olympic Stadium Saturday, anchoring Jamaica's 4x100 metres relay team to the once unthinkable world-record time of 36.84 seconds.
It was Bolt's third gold medal of the Games - a historic repeat of his triple-gold sweep in Beijing four years ago.
In his resounding victory Thursday in the 200-metre final, the Jamaican crossed the finish holding a finger up to his lips as if to say "shhhhh."
"That was for all the people doubting me," Bolt said after his 19.32-second victory. "That was just my way of telling them to stop talking now because I'm a legend. I've done something that has never been done before and because of that I am the greatest. The greatest ever."
Bolt's relay triumph Saturday further cemented his place as the greatest sprinter ever.
"He is the god of track and field," said Yohan Blake, Bolt's teammate and training partner.
For the relay, Blake made up his team's slight deficit on a blistering third leg against American Tyson Gay. Anchors Bolt and Ryan Bailey of the U.S. took their batons almost simultaneously, but Bolt pulled away quickly and ran hard through the line, seeking - and attaining - a record.
Spectators loved it, and chanted, "We want Bolt. We want Bolt!"
The U.S. got the silver in 37.04. Trinidad and Tobago took the bronze in 38.12 after sa国际传媒, which was third across the line, was disqualified for running outside its lane.
Last Sunday, Bolt became the first man to defend the Olympic 100 title on the track.
He is also the first man ever to win two Olympic 200 crowns. And he did so in spectacular fashion, leading a Jamaican sweep of the medals and dragging three other men under 20 seconds.
Blake duplicated his silver-medal finish in the 100 with a 19.44 clocking while relative unknown Warren Weir, 22 like Blake, took the bronze. Wallace Spearmon of the U.S. ran 19.90 but had to settle for fourth place.
"This certified that I am a legend," Bolt said. "I'm over the moon. I'm happy. Tell my doubters 'Thank you very much.'"
If Bolt were sending out thank-you notes to his skeptics for motivating him at the top of the mailing list would be Carl Lewis, who won the Olympic 100 and 200 in 1984 and was awarded the 1988 100 title after sa国际传媒's Ben Johnson was stripped of the gold medal for testing positive for an anabolic steroid. Lewis was upset by training partner Joe DeLoach in the 1988 Olympic 200.
"I'm going to say something controversial," Bolt said in a post-race press conference. "Carl Lewis, I have no respect for him.
The things he says about track athletes are very degrading. I think he's just looking for attention because nobody really talks about him [anymore].
"I've lost all respect for him. All respect."
Lewis, in an interview after Bolt swept the Beijing sprints, implied that the Jamaican was using banned performance enhancing drugs, saying that "you're a fool" by not questioning whether Bolt was racing clean.
Lewis has since continued to raise doubts about Bolt. This has been something of a pattern with Lewis who also made derogatory comments about Maurice Greene, the 2000 Olympic champion and former world record-holder in the 100, and Johnson when they were at their peaks.
Lewis has failed to mention that he tested positive for a banned stimulant at the 1988 U.S. Olympic Trials. The violation could have resulted in a suspension that would have kept Lewis out of the 1988 Games. But U.S. Olympic Committee officials declined to suspend Lewis, telling him in a confidential letter that they considered the positive test the result of inadvertent use. The positive tests and the USOC's handling of the case remained a secret until it was exposed in 2003. Don Catlin, who ran the IOCaccredited drug testing lab at the University of California Los Angeles and was a member of the U.S. Olympic Committee's drug appeals panel in 1988, said in a recent book that he disagreed with the USOC decision in the Lewis case.
"Because essentially they overlooked it," Catlin said in The Dirtiest Race in History, Richard Moore's chronicle of Lewis's showdown with Johnson at the 1988 Games.
Lewis, however, wasn't the only one doubting Bolt after he was disqualified from last year's World Championship 100 for a false start and then had a turbulent 2012 spring. He was upset by Blake in both the 100 and 200 at the Jamaican Olympic Trials and then pulled out of a meet in Monaco and headed to Germany for treatment on a sore hamstring.
"Yohan gave me a wakeup call at the Trials," Bolt said. "He kind of knocked on my door and said 'Usain this an Olympic year and you've got to get serious.' "
Before Thursday's final, Bolt pulled Blake aside. "I said, 'Yohan, it's not your time, it's my time,'" Bolt recalled. " 'After the Olympics, it's your time.' "
