Usain Bolt ran a blistering third leg before passing the baton to Asafa Powell, who took Jamaica over the line in a time of 37.10 seconds. Usain Bolt won his third gold medal of the Olympics and broke his third world record as Jamaica raced to victory in the men’s 4x100m relay.

Trinidad & Tobago won the silver in a time of 38.06 seconds and Japan finished third, but the Jamaicans of Nesta Carter, Michael Frater, Bolt and Powell lived up to their billing as pre-race favourites and blew the rest of the field away.

The gold medal for Bolt means he has completed a clean sweep of the men’s sprint events following his 100m and 200m golds. The Jamaican ran 9.69 seconds to win the 100m and followed that with another world record time of 19.30 seconds in the 200m final on Wednesday.

American Brian Clay stretched his lead in the Olympic decathlon Friday to 316 points after eight events, making the 2004 runner-up a heavy favorite to win gold following two last events Friday night.

Clay, the 2005 world champion, was second overall in the 110-meter hurdles in 13.93 seconds for 984 points, then won the discus with a throw of 53.79m for 950 more and cleared 5.00m in the pole vault for 910 points.

That left Clay on 7,365 total points with only the javelin and 1,500m to come in the two-day, 10-discipline competition that began Thursday with the 100m, long jump, shot put, high jump and 400m.

"I started the day pretty tired, as everybody does," Clay said. "My first race went okay. I didn't fall and I had an okay time so I will take it."

Andrey Krauchanka of Belarus, this year's world indoor runner-up, stood second on 7,049 with Alexander Pogorelov of Russia third on 6,979.

Ukraine's Oleksiy Kasyanov, second by 283 points to Clay when the pole vault began, cleared only 4.30m and fell to fourth on 6,874 as Clay shared third in the vault with Krauchanka and Pogorelov.

A nightmare run for US athletes, including Jamaican sprint domination and two botched final handoffs in the 4x100m relays, continued when Trey Hardee, fourth after seven events, scored no points in the pole vault.

Hardee, with the third-best decathlon total score in the world this year, missed three times at his opening height of 4.70m to doom his medal bid.

Reigning world and Olympic champion Roman Sebrle of the Czech Republic saw his podium hopes fade as well.

The injury-nagged 33-year-old world record holder was third in his 110 hurdles heat in 14.71, reached only 45.50m in the discus and 4.80 in the pole vault to stand on 6,823.

Clay completed the opening day with an 88-point edge over Krauchanka and began the day by winning his morning 110 hurdles heat in a head-to-head showdown with Hardee, fifth in 14.20, and Krauchanka, sixth on 14.21.

Clay boosted his lead to 159 points in the discus, where he owns the world decathlon best of 55.87m, by making his mark on his first attempt.

Kasyanov waited until his last throw to reach 48.39m for 837 points and move into second past Krauchanka, who threw 44.58, and Hardee, who threw 43.55.

Clay, 28, achieved the world's highest decathlon score since 2004 at the US Olympic trials, his personal best of 8,832 points the top US result in 16 years.

Jitender Kumar follows Akhil Kumar's route

India's Jitender Kumar lost to Russian pugilist Georgy Balakshin in the 51kg flyweight category in the Olympics boxing competition on Wednesday.

The Indian boxer lost the bout 15-11 at the Workers' Gymnasium to end hopes of a medal. If Jitender had won he would have been assured of at least a bronze medal.

Though Jitender began on an aggressive note throwing away punches but failed to connect most of them as the Russian took a lead of 2-1 in the first round.

In second round both the boxers scored five points each but thanks to the one-point lead from the first round, Balakshin maintained the lead 7-6.

However, Jitender was totally outclassed in the third round as a flurry of punches from the Russian earned him as many as six points against only two for the Indian. The Russian pulled clear in the third, taking a 13-8 lead.

Jitender could not make up for the lost ground as the Russian resorted to defensive tactics, making scoring very difficult for his opponent in the last round. The Indian although reduced the margin in the fourth and final round when the referee awarded him an extra point to counter the Russian's negative tactics making it 3-2 in his favour. But that made little difference to the result. The Russian eventually won 15-11.

Here were scores for each round - Russian : Indian

Round 1 2:1
Round 2 5:5
Round 3 6:2
Round 4 2:3

The Asian Championship bronze medallist had defeated Uzbek rival Tulashboy Doniyorov by 13-6 in the pre-quarter-finals on Saturday.

Earlier, Jitender, making his Olympic debut, had pummelled his Turkish opponent Ulas Furkan Memis in less than three rounds in the opening round.

Sushil Kumar gave India it's second medal at the Beijing Olympics as he won the bronze in the Men's Freestyle 66kg against Leonid Spiridonov of Kazakhstan.

Earlier, Sushil Kumar lost to Ukrainian Andriy Stadnik on points after being pegged down 3-8 on technical points.

While the luck of the draw gave Sushil a bye in the first round, giving him a start straightaway in the quarterfinals, Standnik had to beat 2007 world no. 5 American Doug Schwab in the round of 16 to move further.

In the quarters, Stadnik, a former World Cup winner and 2006 World Championship bronze medallist, out-played the Indian. As Stadnik, quarterfinalist at the 2007 World Championships, moved into the final, all those who lost to him came through to the Repechage, which will decide the two bronze medallists.

In the Repechage first round, Sushil meets Schwab and their winner will meet Belarussian Albert Batyrov. Sushil will need to win a third bout after that to get himself a bronze.

Schwab was fifth at the last World Championships, where Sushil was seventh. Eventually Sushil made it to the Olympics after making it to the quarter-finals of the World wrestling championship, where he lost to Stadnik from a convincing margin of 4-15.

Coming through to the final from the other half of the category is Turkish wrestler Ramazan Shahin, who won the gold medal in the 2007 World Championships, besides claiming the first place in the 2008 European meet.

All those who lose to the ultimate finalists take part in the repechage, which decides the two bronze medallists.

Sushil later said that there was not much pressure on him.

"Probably you may say that there was no expectation from the people back home and the media too. But me and my coach (Satpal) always knew I had a fair chance of winning a medal and I'm happy I could achieve that," Sushil said at the China Agricultural University in Beijing.

"While it is good not to have that burden of expectation on your shoulder, I think we can give even more provided we get better facilities. I want to dedicate this medal to my coach Satpal," said the current world No. 7.

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