The United States closed out the Olympic track and field meet in style.
First, the men set an Olympic record and won gold in the 4×400-meter relay.
Then, not to be outdone, the women made like Secretariat at the Belmont and smashed the field by over four seconds in their 4×400-meter relay, beating an American record that dated back to the 1988 Seoul Olympics in doing so.
What drama there was had come in the men’s relay, as the team of Christopher Bailey, Vernon Norwood, Bryce Deadmon and Rai Benjamin edged out Botswana by a mere tenth of a second.
Benjamin, a native of Mount Vernon, N.Y., produced a 43.18-second split in the anchor leg, holding off Botswana’s Letslie Tebogo, who ran the fastest leg of the relay at 43.04.
It was the fourth gold medal in the last five Olympics for the men’s 4×400 team and the seventh in a row for the women, who have been atop the podium since 1996.
The women’s team — consisting of Shamier Little, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, Gabby Thomas and Alexis Holmes — won the 34th medal and 14th gold for Team USA at track and field, both of which more than doubled any other country in the field.
Little closed down the Jamaican team during the first leg before handing off to McLaughlin-Levrone, who almost immediately jumped into a decisive lead.
The native of New Brunswick, N.J. and 400-meter hurdle champion ran a 47.8-second split, relegating the rest of the field into a race for second.
When Holmes crossed the line after 3:15.27, she did so over four seconds ahead of the second-place Netherlands.