(10 Aug 2012) STORYLINE:
Throngs of Jamaicans erupted with joy on Thursday as Usain Bolt and two of his countrymen swept the men's 200-metre race at the London Olympic Games.
Watching the race on big video screens in Halfway Tree, one of Kingston's busiest intersections, people waved flags, blew long horns known as vuvuzelas, and chanted "One, two, three!" as Bolt and fellow Jamaicans Yohan Blake and Warren Weir finished ahead of the pack.
"I am so happy and I am so happy to be a Jamaican. Big up to Bolt! And big up to the team abroad. They did superb," said one woman at the gathering.
The crowd chanted "one, two, three" in reference to the sweep by Bolt, Blake and Weir that gave Jamaica gold, silver, and bronze medals in the 200-metre race.
Putting the field far enough behind that he could slow up over his last few strides and put his left index finger to his mouth to tell any critics to shush, Bolt won the 200-metre race in 19.32 seconds, making him the only man with two Olympic titles in that event.
Bolt led a Jamaican sweep, with his training partner and pal Blake getting the silver in 19.44, and Weir taking the bronze in 19.84 - nearly a half-second behind the champion.
Bolt added it to the 100-metre gold he won on Sunday, duplicating the 100-200 double he produced at the Beijing Games four years ago.
The only difference is in 2008, Bolt broke world records in both.
Afterward, Bolt had plenty of energy left, dropping to the track to do five pushups - one for each of his Olympic gold medals so far.
Ever the showman, he bent down and kissed the track, then did it again a few minutes later, and also grabbed a camera from someone in the photographers' well and trained it at the group who were clicking away.
Bolt's stated goal heading to London was to become a "living legend," and, well, he's making a pretty good case for himself.
With his 6-foot-5 build, unusually tall for a sprinter, Bolt makes up for lumbering starts with warp speed stretch runs.
He was only the sixth-fastest of eight entrants out of the blocks in the 200, the exact same less-than-ideal reaction as he had in the 100.
But with teeth clenched he used those long, long, long strides to propel himself quickly to the front.
It didn't matter that he let up for the final three steps, taking a look to his left to check on Blake, who also was the silver medallist in the 100.
Still, Bolt's time was exactly the same as three-time individual Olympic gold medallist Michael Johnson's when the American set the then-record at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics; back then, the thinking was that would stand as the mark for decades.
Then along came Bolt.
His 19.30 in the 200 final at Beijing still stands as the Olympic record - and certainly would have been eclipsed Thursday with a full-fledged sprint through the finish - but Bolt bettered that with a 19.19 at the 2009 world championships, where he also set the current 100 record of 9.58.
In all, the 25-year-old Bolt has won seven of the last eight major individual sprint titles in the 100 and 200 at Olympics and world championships, a four-year streak of unprecedented dominance.
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