Bolt leads Racers Track Club to impressive relay victory

Usain Bolt

London - Usain Bolt led his Racers Track Club (RTC) of Jamaica to victory in the 4×100 metres relay to culminate the Sainbury’s Anniversary Games here.

Bolt, who returned to the iconic London Olympic Stadium to win the 100m on Friday, sped ahead to complete the relay in a new meet record of 37.75 seconds here Saturday, reports Xinhua.

The team of Mario Forsythe, Kemar Bailey-Cole, Warren Weir and Bolt was never threatened as they displayed flawless baton passing to win ahead of France (38.45 secs) and Canada (38.58 secs).

Great Britain continues to be plagued by baton error and similar to its early exit from the Olympic Games, the team failed to finish.

Bolt credits the togetherness of teammates for their display on Saturday.

“It was good running with my teammates, especially the guys I see every day, so it was nice,” he said.

“We haven’t run a lot of relays together, but just being around each other every day we can understand each other and we know how fast we are personally, so it worked out really well.”

Earlier, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce clocked a world leading and meeting record 10.77 seconds in the 100m heats only to lose the final to Nigeria’s Blessing Okagbare in 10.79 secs.

Fraser-Pryce failed to recover from a terrible start and finished fourth in 10.94 behind American Barbara Pierre, who equalled her personal best of 10.85 secs and Kelly-Ann Baptiste of Trinidad and Tobago (10.93 secs).

“I was trying to simulate running two fast back-to-back 100m races,” explained Fraser-Pryce. “I wanted to simulate a very good semi-final and final, so that’s what I tried to do. There is lots of work to do there.”

In other results, Bianca Stuart of the Bahamas finished second in the women’s long jump with 6.46 metres, the same distance as the winner, Katarina Johnson-Thompson of Great Britain.

Another Bahamian, Anthonique Strachan was third in the 200m in 22.63 and Anneisha McLaughlin finished fifth (22.88).

Dwight Thomas of Jamaica was fifth (13.53) in the men’s 110m hurdles, in an event which saw the world record holder Aries Merritt crashing out after hitting the fourth barrier. American David Oliver took the victory in 13.20.

And Jamaicans Christine Day and Rosemarie Whyte finished fifth and sixth respectively in the 400m where former Olympic and World champion Christine Ohuruogu of Great Britain ran her fastest race of the season in 50.00. She was well ahead of Americans Francena McCorory (50.13) and Natasha Hastings (50.68).