Four the fourth straight Olympics, a Jamaican has swept gold in the track and field sprint events.
From 2008* to 2016 it was Usain Bolt. In Tokyo, Elaine Thompson-Herah continued the streak.
Thompson-Herah ran the second leg on Jamaica's gold medal-winning women's 4x100m relay team Friday, completing the golden triple in the 100m, 200m and 4x1 relay.
Along with teammates Briana Williams, Shericka Jackson and now eight-time Olympic medalist Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Thompson-Herah and Jamaica finished the single lap race in 41.02, the second-fastest time in history.
The United States crossed 0.43 later for silver, followed by Great Britain for bronze in 41.88.
Thompson-Herah became just the fifth woman to win at least three track and field gold medals in the same Olympic and the first to do it since American Allyson Felix at the London 2012 Olympics. No woman had completed the triple in the sprints since Florence Griffith-Joyner did so at Seoul 1988.
The 29-year-old Jamaican also won double gold in the 100m and 200m at the 2016 Rio Olympics, and took silver in the 4x1 to a U.S. team that included Felix. Thompson-Herah now boasts five career Olympic gold medals and trails only Felix's six for the most in track and field history for a woman.
Felix also ran as part of the London 2012 U.S. relay which finished in 40.82, which still stands as the world record.
The version of the U.S. team running in Tokyo lacked the experience and star power of its predecessors. Of the foursome of Javianne Oliver, Teahna Daniels, Jenna Prandini and Gaby Thomas, only Thomas entered with an Olympic medal, a bronze in the 200m at these Olympics.
Keeping pace with the electric Jamaican team was always going to be a difficult task, though the U.S. still topped bronze medalists Great Britain by .43 for the silver.
*Bolt's 2008 4x100m relay gold medal was retroactively stripped in 2017 due to a doping violation by teammate Nesta Carter.
