Beijing: Treble gold medallist Usain Bolt dominated track and field events at the Olympic Games, spearheading a Jamaican team to sprint glory over their faltering US archrivals.
If any sport needed a boost going into the Olympics, it was athletics and its doping-tarnished image that has suffered from recent negative news about Marion Jones and the US men's 4x400m relay team from the 2000 Sydney Games.
The US team suffered one of its worst showings in Olympics history but still finished atop the gold medal standings, however, thanks to its men's 4x400m relay squad winning in the penultimate race of the 47-event competition.
The Americans finished with seven golds, nine silvers and seven bronzes for a total of 23. Russia came second with 18 medals (six gold, five silver, seven bronze and Jamaica third with six golds, three silvers and two bronzes.
Kenya bumped up their medal count to 14 (5-5-4) with gold medal-winning performances in the men's 800m and women's 1500m in the final evening session, and Samuel Wanjiru claiming the men's marathon title here on Sunday.
"As an organisation, we owe it to our athletes to provide the preparation they need to succeed," USA Track and Field chief executive Doug Logan said.
"We will do everything we can to figure out what went wrong and to make sure it doesn't happen again."
Jamaican officials, however, were delighted with the six gold medal showing from the Caribbean island's athletes.
"We're the leading athletic country in the world," said Mike Fennell, president of the Jamaican Olympic Association, adding that the medal haul was a result of "pure, raw talent that has been properly nurtured. We're reaping the rewards of all that hard work".
In the absence of American defending 100m champion Justin Gatlin, currently serving a ban for a doping violation, Bolt came into his own at the magnificent 91,000-capacity arena that is the Bird's Nest.
The Jamaican arrived as a 21-year-old who had just sent a ripple through the world of athletics by snatching the men's 100m world record from compatriot Asafa Powell.
He left having celebrated his 22nd birthday, a consummate showman admired by fans, pundits and sponsors, who claimed world records and gold in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay, an unprecedented feat.
His sprint double was the first since American Carl Lewis in the 1984 Los Angeles Games.
It was also a fantastic Games for the Ethiopian duo of Kenenisa Bekele and Tirunesh Dibaba, two remarkable multi-medal-winning long-distance runners who claimed men's and women's 5000m and 10,000m doubles within a day of each other.
Bekele became the first male athlete to do the double since another Ethiopian Miruts Yifter achieved the same feat in the boycotted 1980 Games in Moscow, while Dibaba's accomplishment was a ground-breaker for the women.
Apart from Bolt's world records, there were two more set at the atmospheric National Stadium.
Russian Yelena Isinbayeva, the reigning double world and triple European champion, used the vociferous support of the crowd to her advantage to clear 5.05m in a masterful display in the women's pole vault.
The height was a massive 25cm higher than her closest competitor in an event she has completely dominated for the last four years and in which she has rarely been tested by rivals.
The other record was set in the maiden Olympic running of the women's 3000m steeplechase by Gulnara Galkina-Samitova of Russia, whose gun-to-tape performance saw her home in 8min 58.81sec.
And there were first ever gold medals for Belgium, Brazil and Panama through Tia Hellebaut in the women's high jump, Maurren Maggi in the women's long jump, and Irving Saladino in the men's long jump respectively.
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