Beijing: Jamaica completed a sprint grand slam and bungling United States teams crashed out of the relays on a day of Olympic heroes and villains on Thursday.
Veronica Campbell-Brown's defence of her 200 metres title gave Jamaica all four sprint golds after Usain Bolt raced into a class of his own taking the men's 100m-200m double in world-record time and Shelly-Ann Fraser won the women's 100m.
For the first time since the boycotted 1980 Moscow Games the United States hasn't won at least one of the four glamour sprints.
Their miserable Games continued in the men's and women's 4x100 heats when both US teams dropped the baton at the final change and failed to qualify.
As Campbell-Brown became a Games hero, so too did Dutch swimmer Maarten van der Weijden who beat life-threatening leukemia to win the gruelling swimming marathon.
"It teaches you to be patient when you are lying in a hospital bed and that was almost the same strategy I chose here to wait for my chance in the pack," he said.
The Games hosts have 46 gold medals to 29 for the USA, 17 for Great Britain and Russia on 16.
Campbell-Brown powered out of the blocks and had second-placed American Allyson Felix covered by the halfway mark in the 200m.
"It's been great to see Jamaica get a clean sweep of the sprints," she said before returning to the track to anchor Jamaica as they qualified for the women's 4x100m final. The Jamaican men also qualified.
It was left to LaShawn Merritt to save face for the United States on the track as he led a US sweep of the men's 400m final beating home defending champion Jeremy Wariner while David Neville stumbled over the line for third.
Cuba's world record holder Dayron Robles easily won the men's 110m hurdles but received a subdued ovation from the largely patriotic Chinese crowd after their national icon Liu Xiang withdrew in the heats with a foot injury.
While the USA had woes on the track and were upset by Japan 3-1 in the last Olympic softball final, their peerless women's volleyball duo Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor recorded their 108th consecutive victory beating China's Tian Jia and Wang Jie 21-18, 21-18 in the final.
The US women's football team then boosted the medal count with a 1-0 extra-time win over Brazil in the final to defend the gold they won in Athens.
Chinese teenager Chen Ruolin won the women's 10m platform diving final to give China their only gold of the day but their seventh from seven diving events.
Great Britain, enjoying their best Olympics since London in 1908 won their fourth yachting gold from 11 classes when Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson took the men's Star title.
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