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BEIJING - The United States defended the Olympic men's 4x400m relay crown Saturday in an Olympic record 2mins 55.39secs to give the Americans supremacy in Beijing athletics with a seventh gold medal.
Beijing 400m Olympic champion LaShawn Merritt, 400m hurdles Olympic champion Angelo Taylor, 400m bronze medallist David Neville and two-time world 400m champion Jeremy Wariner broke the old mark of 2:55.74 set by US men in 1992.
Bahamas, last year's world runner-up, were second in 2:58.03 with Russia third in 2:58.06.
It was the Americans' seventh time in a row crossing the finish line first in the event, although the 2000 Sydney gold was stripped by the International Olympic Committee when three members of the US team were linked to doping.
Merritt, who topped the US 400m podium sweep, put the Americans ahead on the opening leg and Taylor stretched the margin before making the handoff to Neville, a carefully made pass given dropped batons by both US 4x100m relays.
Neville handed the stick to anchor man Wariner and the 2004 Olympic champion sped off, serving notice to the field the Americans would not be denied a seventh athletics gold.
Bahamas anchor Chris Brown surged into second and held off Russia's Denis Alexeev at the line.
Britain was fourth in 2:58.81 with Belgium fifth in 2:59.37 and Australia, the 2004 silver medallists, sixth in 3:00.02.
- AFP/ir
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