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Usain Bolt is now officially a track and field legend after winning his third gold medal in the 4x100m relay in record time on Friday's eight day of competition of the 29th Olympiad in the 91,000 capacity Bird's Nest Stadium.

In the process, Jamaica's medal tally improved to 10 - six gold, three silver, and one bronze at these games. That means the nation's medal tally in track and field since first appearing at the 1948 London Games now stands at 53 - 14 gold, 24 silver and 15 bronze.

Unfortunately the defending champion women's sprint relay team failed to finish in a race that they were also expected to win in world record time with all members of the quartet capable of running sub-11 seconds.

Bolt, who ran the third leg on Jamaica's male team, which clocked a magnificent 37.10 seconds to chop 0.30secs of the USA's 16-year-old mark of 37.40, became the first human being to accomplish three track and field world records while winning gold medals in the 112-year history of the Olympics.

Other athletes have won three or more gold medals in a single Olympics, but none of them established world record marks in all events at the same time.

According to the IAAF's Athletics Statistics Book compiled for the 29th Olympiad: "Paavo Nurmi of Finland took five medals in 1924, Jesse Owens of the USA won four gold in 1936; Carl Lewis of the USA won four in 1984, while Fanny Blankers-Koen was also a quadruple champion in 1948".

Last Saturday, Bolt won the 100m in an impressive 9.69secs to shave 0.03 off his own mark of 9.72 while celebrating with 15 metres remaining, then returned three days later to post a mind-boggling 19.30secs into a head wind (-0.09) to slice 0.02 off the American Michael Johnson's 12-year-old mark of 19.32.

The quartet of Nesta Carter, Michael Frater, Bolt and Asafa Powell was simply awesome as they demolished the old mark established twice by the USA in Barcelona 1992 and Stuttgart one year later.

After the race, Bolt said that the sprint relay gold and record rank even higher than his individual successes in the 100m and 200m. "The team effort makes the third gold more special than the 100m and 200m," the lanky sprinter reasoned. "I can't explain the feeling for this accomplishment, it's just great, it's wonderful and I'm happy to have taken part in Jamaica's greatest Olympics ever."

Powell, who was winning his first Olympic medal after finishing fifth in the 100m in Athens in 2004 and here in Beijing, told Sporting World that he, Frater and Carter all did it for Bolt.

"We had breakfast together, we had lunch together and worked as a team all day as we prepared to win in world record as a gift to Usain," Powell said. "This makes up for everything," he said, noting that his previous underachievements are behind him.

"Words can't explain how I'm feeling," Frater said. "We wanted to show the world that Jamaica is a special country," the 2005 World Championship 100m silver medallist added.
Carter, who gave the team a brilliant start, noted that they also wanted to win to cheer up the women's 4x100m team, who failed to finished.

The men's running order was agreed on by the coaching staff just hours before the race as Frater was originally scheduled to start with Bolt on the back-stretch, Carter third and Powell on anchor. It was Jamaica's second ever medal in the men's sprint relay following silver at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles. Yesterday, Trinidad and Tobago took the silver in 38.06secs, ahead of Japan 38.15.