Bolt Anchors Jamaica to 36.84 Relay World Record

On 11 August 2012, Usain Bolt took the baton for the final leg and carried Jamaica to gold in the 4x100m relay. The clock stopped at 36.84. It was a world record, and it still stands.

One anchor leg, a mark that has never been beaten

The final closed the London athletics programme on the track where Bolt had already ruled the individual sprints. He ran the anchor, bringing the Jamaican quartet home in front. The winning time lowered the world record for the event.

The stage suited him. He had spent the week as the fastest man in the stadium, and the crowd knew the last leg was his. When he crossed the line, Jamaica held both the title and the fastest 4x100m ever run.

The gold sealed a clean set of London titles for him. Days earlier he had defended his Olympic 100m crown in 9.63, an Olympic record, and then retained the 200m title. The relay completed a second straight Olympic sprint sweep.

A record that outlasted the sprinter who set it

The London relay sat at the centre of a career built on records. In Berlin in 2009 he had run 9.58 over 100m and 19.19 over 200m, both marks that also still stand.

He returned to the same relay stage again and again. He anchored Jamaica to further gold in Moscow in 2013 and Beijing in 2015, each win adding to a run of world titles. In Rio in 2016 he closed his Olympic career with a third consecutive relay gold, his eighth Olympic title in all.

Of all those runs, the London anchor endures the longest in the record book. Years after Bolt left the track, no quartet has run the distance faster.