Bolt Nails World Record for Jamaica in Men's Relay as Daegu Wraps Up

Jamaica ensured the World Athletics Championships ended on a high note on Sunday when Usain Bolt accelerated like a firework down the final stretch of the 4x100-m relay to nail the gold medal and wrap things up at Daegu Stadium with the tournament's first world record.

Bolt collected the baton from new 100-m world champion Yohan Blake after Nesta Carter and Michael Frater had played their part, and tore over the finish line with explosive speed to give Jamaica a time of 37.04 seconds, shattering the previous record of 37.10 seconds.

Usain Bolt of Jamaica reacts after setting a new world record in the men's 400-m relay at the IAAF World Athletics Championships in Daegu on Sunday.

France (38.20) took silver and St Kitts and Nevis (38.49) bronze.

As usual, Bolt, the lanky 25-year-old with an irrepressible sense of humor that has inflamed the delicate sensibilities of IAAF and Olympic officials, rounded off his race with some typical showboating that included some frenetic dance moves.

It was Bolt's second gold medal in Daegu after he won the 200 m one day earlier, and his fifth overall at the World Championships after he picked up a hat trick at Berlin 2009.

Jamaican athletes pose by a billboard after winning the men's 400-m relay in a new world record of 37.04 seconds in the IAAF World Athletics Championships in Daegu on Sunday.

Sunday night's world record will also help ease memories of the disappointing false start that saw the Beijing Olympics triple gold medalist disqualified from the 100-m final on Day Two of competition on Aug. 28.

Before Sunday's exhilarating performance, Daegu was set to become only the fourth IAAF World Championships where no new world records were set. This would add it to a list shared by Athens (the 1997 host), Edmonton in Canada (2001) and Osaka in Japan (2007).