Rai Benjamin held off Letsile Tebogo on the anchor leg to give the United States a gold medal and an Olympic-record time in the men's 4x400-meter relay at the Paris Games on Saturday night.
"I calculated that run very well to a T," Benjamin said. "I have a really good, high 'track IQ' on people and how they run and how to do a quick time, so I didn't have to get out too hard: Let's just save it up to come home.'"
Benjamin added this Olympic title to the one he claimed in the 400-meter hurdles a night earlier and prevented 200-meter champion Tebogo from giving Botswana another triumph over the Americans.
It was Tebogo , the 21-year-old sprinting sensation, who stole the spotlight - and the gold - from the U.S. in the 200 on Thursday, relegating Kenny Bednarek to silver and Noah Lyles, who tested positive for COVID-19 , to bronze.
The U.S. quartet of Christopher Bailey, Vernon Norwood, Bryce Deadmon and Benjamin completed the four laps in 2 minutes, 54.43 seconds, nearly a second faster than the American 4x400 team ran at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. And Saturday's time was just .14 seconds off the world record set by the United States in 1993.
