World-record finish

André Lowe, Senior Staff Reporter

DAEGU, South Korea:

JAMAICA closed out the 13th IAAF World Championships in Athletics in explosive fashion, bringing down the curtains with the championships' only world record; a blistering 37.04 seconds run in the men's 4x100m relay and a national record in the women's equivalent, to close their medal haul of nine medals - the country's third best ever return.

The country finished the championships in fourth position behind the United States (25 medals), Russia (19) and Kenya (17).

When the smoke cleared in the men's sprint relay final, France had finished in second place in 38.20, while St Kitts and Nevis were the surprise bronze medallists in 38.49.

In a race not void of incident - with the Americans crashing out after a collision with third leg runner Darvis Patton and Great Britain and Northern Ireland's Marlon Devonish just ahead of the final exchange, Bolt kept his cool, collected the baton from 100m champion Yohan Blake and powered through to the finish to better the country's own 37.10 world record, which was set at the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008.

That 2008 team featured three of the athletes who ran last night in Usain Bolt, Nesta Carter and Michael Frater, with the latter believing that experience certainly played a major role in their improved showing.

"Experience definitely played a major factor for us, we had not been able to do a lot of exchanges, we just went out there and executed," Frater said.

Newly crowned world 100m champion, Blake, who did well on the curve - something he is not known to favour - was the other person on this year's gold medal team.

Extra push

"To have two gold medals and one world record, I just thank God and the entire team, I feel over the moon right now," Blake beamed.

Bolt, whose split was said to be in the region of 8.70 seconds, lauded the efforts of his teammates shortly after the race and said their runs encouraged him to put in that extra push.

"After I saw the guys' first three legs, I knew that they were giving their all and I had to give my all as well. I kept on looking at the clock, ran through the line and was excited to see the world record," said Bolt.

That wasn't the only record on the books for the Jamaicans as the team of Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Kerron Stewart, Sherone Simpson and Veronica Campbell-Brown posted the fastest time ever by a Jamaican team, on their way to the silver medal in the women's 4x100m.

The USA won in 41.56 with the fast-closing Jamaicans, through Campbell-Brown, posting 41.70 - erasing the old mark of 41.73 set at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. Ukraine were third in 42.51.

"It was a good run. We expected a good run from the US. The objective was to get the baton around and finish healthy and we accomplished that tonight," said Campbell-Brown, who also leaves the championships with a 100m silver and the 200m gold.

Fraser-Pryce was also thankful for the record.

"We give God thanks for finishing the race injury free, we did our best. I wanted to give my team a good start and I'm extremely happy for the national record," said Fraser-Pryce.

Meanwhile, middle-distance flagbearer Kenia Sinclair, running in her first World Champion-ships finals, failed to medal in the 800m, finishing seventh in 1:58.66.