SAINT-DENIS, France — The U.S. men and women both took gold in the 4×400-meter relays Saturday at the Paris Games, with the men setting an Olympic record and the women blowing past the competition.
Rai Benjamin held off Letsile Tebogo on the anchor leg to give the men’s team the win in record time. The U.S. women’s team finished in 3 minutes, 15.27 seconds, only .1 short of the world record set by the Soviet Union in 1988.
Benjamin added this Olympic title to the one he claimed in the 400-meter hurdles a night earlier and prevented 200-meter champion Tebogo from giving Botswana another triumph over the Americans.
“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.’
It was Tebogo, the 21-year-old sprinting sensation, who stole the spotlight — and the gold — from the U.S. in the 200 on Thursday, relegating Kenny Bednarek to silver and Noah Lyles, who tested positive for COVID-19, to bronze.
The U.S. quartet of Christopher Bailey, Vernon Norwood, Bryce Deadmon and Benjamin completed the four laps in 2 minutes, 54.43 seconds, nearly a second faster than the American 4×400 team ran at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. And Saturday’s time was just .14 off the world record set by the United States in 1993.
It’s the Americans’ 19th gold in the 26 runnings of this relay at the Summer Olympics. No other country has more than two golds in the men’s 4×400.
“Team USA have always had dominance over the 4×4,” Bailey said, “and we just wanted to keep it going.”
Botswana was a tenth of a second back Saturday, with Tebogo joined by Bayapo Ndori, Busang Collen Kebinatshipi and Anthony Pesela.
Britain was third in 2:55.83.
For the women, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and Gabby Thomas teamed up for America’s 14th gold and 34th overall medal, wrapping up the Olympic action at the Stade de France with a 4.23-second runaway in the women’s 4×400 relay.
The gold medalists in the 400 hurdles and 200 meters took care of legs two and three for the United States, handing a 30-meter lead to Alexis Holmes, who didn’t lose any ground.
McLaughlin-Levrone, who owns the world’s fourth-fastest time in the 400 to go with her latest world record in hurdles, ran her leg in 47.71. That was .91 of a second faster than the next fastest woman in the field, Femke Bol, who took the Netherlands to silver.
The 34 track medals was the most for the U.S. at a non-boycotted Games since the early 20th century, when there were more events and fewer countries, and the 14 golds are the most in a non-boycotted Olympics since Bob Beamon, Tommie Smith and John Carlos led the U.S. to 15 wins in 1968.
The U.S. had earlier equaled its medal total of 32 from the Rio Games when high jumper Shelby McEwen won a surprise silver medal after losing a drawn-out tiebreaker to New Zealand’s Hamish Kerr, who celebrated by diving into the thankfully inactive javelin landing zone.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
