Usain Bolt. The fastest one. The flawless immortal.
Bolt, the greatest sprinter in the history of this planet, anchored Jamaica's 4x100-meter relay team on Friday night, blazing to gold and earning him a perfect Olympic resume. Nine events, nine golds across three Olympics.
A triple-triple.
He's the first to ever to do that, and given it's taken so long for the world to see it happen, chances are you and I won't ever witness someone achieve it again in our lifetimes. Bolt is for the ages, but although he is singularly recognized as an anomaly on the track, fittingly, he went out with the boost of his three Jamaican teammates.
"The only way you can defeat Jamaica is hope they make a big mistake and botch the pass, or get so far ahead of Usain Bolt that he can't catch you," NBC commentator Ato Boldon said on the broadcast. "They were in no danger of that happening tonight."
Jamaica, which set the world record at the 2012 Games with a time of 36.84, cleared the line in 37.27 on Friday night. Despite the dominating finish, there was a flicker of drama. Japan, the best baton-exchange team in the field, ran an incredible relay and wound up taking silver (37.60).
For a second or two -- literally -- the final 100 meters was for the taking, but only on a cosmetic and, when you think about it, comic level. Bolt created separation and left no doubt to his utopian track legend. With Mario Kart-mushroom speed, Bolt blazed once more to the finish and left the competition looking at his taillights. Asafa Powell started Jamaica's relay, then handed off to Yohan Blake, who passed to Nick Ashmeade, who gave the baton to Bolt and watched as history cleared way for the most popular track and field athlete in world history.
"Well, for me I told you guys I was going to do it," Bolt said on NBC. "I prepared myself and I worked hard to get here. I couldn't have done the triple without my teammates. They came through for me as always."
Jamaica's run on Friday night was the fourth fastest in history. The country has the seven fastest 4x100s ever. Bolt has been a part of every one of them.
For the United States, a surprising disqualification. Originally the team ran a 37.62 relay, which was good for bronze. But upon review, officials determined Mike Rodgers handed the baton too early to Justin Gatlin.
"I see him throwing his hand back, but I see when he has possession of the stick he's inside the zone," Rodgers said on NBC as he was shown the replay. "He (Gatlin) has his hand back there, but he doesn't have the stick. He has the stick now. It hasn't left my hand yet."
Here's the rule. Trinidad and Tobago was also disqualified.
.@TeamUSA was Disqualified from the men's 4x100m Relay because of Rule 170.7#Rio2016pic.twitter.com/zzQVsAcLbZ
— NBC Olympics (@NBCOlympics) August 20, 2016
The United States filed a protest, but it's to no avail. The U.S. team of Rodgers, Gatlin, Tyson Gay and Trayvon Bromell is shut out. In their place, Canada took bronze (37.64). In every relay Olympic final in the Bolt era, the United States has failed to secure a medal finish.
This latest gaffe will make for an interesting footnote in what Bolt says is the final race of his Olympic career.
"Nah, definitely not," Bolt said when asked if there was any chance he'd return for the 2020 Games in Tokyo.
"I've set the bar high, and that's what I came here to do," Bolt said. "I've set the bar and I feel extremely proud of myself and I'll continue to work."
That work will likely involve his final major appearance in 2017, at the world championships. But that competition isn't as big as the Olympics. This was his send-off. Most want him back in Tokyo, but going perfect in three Olympiads is something that will live on for decades -- centuries, even. Bolt is a name, a verb, a figure, a global sports legend that will almost definitely be referenced hundreds of years from now. Even if and when a sprinter of the future eventually breaks some or all of his records, he'll always be the first.
There's immutability in that. He knows it.
"I needed to win and the Olympics needed me to win because the sport's going through a lot and I will help to bring it back," Bolt said. "And that's what I did, and in that process I became one of the greatest."
Echoes of the late Muhammad Ali with those words. Bolt's charm also resembles The Greatest in some ways, too. For all of his speed and supremacy, Bolt's ability to remain endearingly cocky is what's kept billions cheering for him for almost a decade.
The appeal and fame of Bolt is so easy to digest because it's so basic, so fundamental to human existence. We love to race. Almost all of us have run before. It's a foundational recreational rite of passage on playgrounds and in backyards, fields and roads around the globe.
In Bolt, we see the maximum. There's never been anyone like him purely because there's never been anyone as fast as he is. Speed always thrills. Always has, always will.
So when someone can run like that, and when no one can catch him, of course we don't ever want to see him stop.
