An injury depleted American men's 1,600-meter relay team made up for the blunder of the 400 squad by fighting off a powerful British challenge and winning the world championship title Sunday for the third time in a row.
Even without world and Olympic champion Michael Johnson and world record-holder Butch Reynolds, the foursome ran the fastest time of the year and made sure Britain went home without a gold medal for the first time in the history of the championships."Not bad for three young guys and one old man," said Antonio Pettigrew, the veteran of the group at 29 and a 1991 world champion in the event. "These guys are the future. We've got three young guys running with us. There was so much pressure on them."
Their victory before 70,000 fans in Olympic Stadium came one day after the 400 team botched its first handover in the opening heat and went out without three of the runners touching the baton. Dennis Mitchell, who has won two relay golds at the worlds and one at the Olympics, was third man in the quartet and wound up taking no part in the championship.
The 1,600 foursome of Jerome Young, Pettigrew, Chris Jones and Tyree Washington also faced a full-strength British squad which was confident of victory, especially in the absence of Johnson and Reynolds.
Pettigrew took advantage of a poor second leg for the British team by Olympic silver medalist Roger Black to hand a 10-meter lead to Jones.
Jamie Baulch wiped that out, went ahead of Jones down the back straight and the British victory looked a strong possibility.
But Baulch had done all his running in the first 300 and slowed in the straightaway as Jones breezed past him to hand a five-meter lead over to anchorman Washington.
Britain's Mark Richardson quickly pulled up to Washington's shoulder, but the 400-meter bronze medalist kept plenty in reserve and pulled away in the final 80 meters to lead the team home in 2 minutes, 56.47 seconds.
Britain took its fifth silver medal in 2:56.65, and the Jamaican quartet of Michael McDonald, Gregory Haughton, Danny McFarlane and Davian Clarke earned the bronze in 2:56.75.
"The Brits were running so hard just trying to stay with us," Pettigrew said. "You're always going to fade in the end running like that. They weren't really thinking, they were just running."
Unlike the men, the women's 1,600 team couldn't make it three titles in a row.
Jearl Miles-Clark overtook Jamaica's Sandie Richards and Russia's Tatyana Alekseyeva in the straight and appeared set to lead her team home until Germany's Grit Breuer burst through a gap on the inside lane and swept past all three to take the gold.
Miles-Clark held on for the silver, and Jamaica took the bronze.
Without the Americans in the final, the defending Canadian team squad was the hot favorite to win the men's 400 relay, but made it look difficult.
When world record-holder Donovan Bailey, who lost his 100-meter title to American Maurice Greene, collected the baton from Bruny Surin, he had Nigeria's Davidson Ezinwa and Cuba's Luis Alberto close.
It stayed that way for the first 50 meters down the stretch before Bailey's finishing speed took the Canadians through in 37.86 to their third major title in a row - two at the worlds and one at the Olympics.
Nigeria, two meters back at the finish line, placed second and Britain came through for the bronze.