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heap runs on offer.The better team would have less chance of winning; the weaker team would have more chance of escaping with a draw.W from LAM's blog

RIO DE JANEIRO -- Undefeated, uncatchable, unquestionably the best. Yasiel Puig Jersey .Usain Bolt bid a blazing-fast farewell to Rio de Janeiro, and probably the Olympics altogether, Friday night with yet another anchor leg for the ages. He turned a close 4x100 relay race against Japan and the United States into a runaway, helping Jamaica cross the line in 37.27 seconds.With the victory, Bolt won his ninth career Olympic medal and completed a triple-triple, with three gold medals at three consecutive Olympics.There you go, Bolt said. Im the greatest.The U.S. finished the race third but endured yet another relay debacle; the Americans were disqualified because it was ruled that leadoff runner Mike Rodgers passed the baton to Justin Gatlin outside the exchange zone.?Canada was elevated to the bronze-medal position in a national-record 37.64 seconds, trailing silver medalist Japan.USA Track & Field said early Saturday morning that it had appealed the decision.It marked the ninth time since 1995 that the U.S. men have been disqualified or failed to get the baton around at the Olympics or world championships.Hell, we already did the victory lap, and then when we talked to TV, they told us, said Tyson Gay, who ran the third leg for the Americans. They said Justin got the stick before the zone. Hes saying he didnt. Hopefully we can appeal.Gatlin called the incident a twilight zone, a nightmare -- all that hard work just crumbles.I believe in my guys, man, he said. I just hate that it happened to us in this fashion.Japan, which had the lead going into the final baton change, finished 0.33 seconds behind Jamaica.Undaunted despite running in the lane beside Bolt, Aska Cambridge anchored Japan in an Asian record time of 37.60. It topped the bronze medal from the team of 2008 -- the first men from Japan to win an Olympic track medal in a sprinting event.It was really, really fantastic, and its just so nice to be part of it, said the 23-year-old Cambridge, who has a Japanese mother and a Jamaican father. I may have Jamaican blood, but I was brought up in Japan and trained in Japan.Canadas Andre de Grasse, who won silver in the 200 meters and bronze in the 100, said his team had seen the Americans disqualified before, most recently at last years world championships.Last year we were fourth, and U.S. got DQd and we got a medal, he said. I told them all to wait around. You dont know what can happen. Its tricky. Sometimes it just doesnt take just speed.Still, he hadnt been expecting such big things from the silver medalists.Japan probably surprised us a little bit, de Grasse said. We didnt expect to see them up there. But congrats to them as well.Gatlin has won five medals in his career, including a gold in the 100 meters at the 2004 Athens Games. At age 34, he said he wasnt willing to call this the end of his Olympic career.I never said this was my last Olympics, he said. This has made me hungry for the world championships next year.?Bolt hasnt botched a relay handoff in any major championship since he started running them in 2007. Its easier when you know youre the fastest man out there.Bolts record in Olympic finals: nine races, nine wins. Nobody has done that before, and nobody is on the horizon to do it again soon.As expected, Bolt said he doesnt plan to compete again in the Olympics.Im sorry, guys, said Bolt, who has a vacation on tap next. But this is the last one.Along with Bolt for his final trip down the track were Nickel Ashmeade, training partner Yohan Blake and the Jamaican elder statesman, former world-record holder Asafa Powell.My team came through for me tonight, Bolt said. As long as we got the baton round, it was never in doubt.When Bolt received the yellow baton from Ashmeade for his final run down the straightaway, he was even, maybe a step behind, Japans Cambridge and Trayvon Bromell of the United States.That lasted about four steps.With 70 meters to go, it was all over. Bolt looked at the clock, same as he did when he finished the 200-meter victory the night before. No world record, but he still owns that one too -- 36.84 seconds, set four years ago at the London Games.I am just relieved, Bolt said. Its happened. I am just happy, proud of myself. Its come true. The pressure is real. I look at it as an accomplishment.Counting all the preliminaries, finals and his approximately nine-second blast down the stretch in Fridays race, Bolt has spent 325 seconds, a tad less than 5? minutes, running on the track at the Olympics since he made his debut in Beijing eight years ago.Every tick of the clock has been a treasure. While he might not close things out with 23 golds, the number Michael Phelps left Rio with earlier this week, its hard to argue there is anybody more successful, electric or important to his sport and the Olympics themselves.The anchor sport of the Olympics has been mired, especially over the past year, in a cesspool of doping, cheating and bad characters.When Bolts on the track, everyone forgets.A great sprinter, said Gay, who once upon a time was Bolts biggest challenger. Nine gold medals, words cant even describe what hes done for the sport.So much of that is because the show isnt over when hes through running. After crossing the line for his finale, Bolt pumped his fist in the air, slowed down and took off his famous gold spikes. He huddled with his teammates, and they prayed. Then, a final, luxurious ring around the track.Ill stay up late tonight, Bolt said when asked how he would celebrate.But before he left the track, his partners peeled off from the victory lap. With the stadium emptying, Bolt kneeled down, brought his hands out to his sides and soaked in one last burst of applause. Then he kissed the track and slapped his hand on the number 3 painted at the starting line.As in three Olympics, three races at each, three gold medals each time.He could have just as easily slapped the number 1. That would need no explanation.After his news conference ended in the wee hours, Bolt came back onto the track with most of the lights in the stadium having already been turned off.Bolt took a couple throws of the javelin, the last one going about 50 meters.He posed for some pictures afterward, with the javelin -- which he requested a formal measurement of -- still stuck in the Olympic Stadium turf.Bolts final throw would have earned him a sixth-place finish at this years Jamaican national championships.Information from The Associated Press was used in this report. Andre Ethier Jersey . Louis Blues teammates who would also be participating in the Olympics, Alex Pietrangelo felt right at home, no different in some ways to the travel experience of any old road trip – save for the length of the journey, that is. Max Muncy Jersey . The Court of Arbitration for Sport ruling "puts an end to my dreams of being a top player," the 27-year-old Troicki said in a statement. "I worked my entire life for it, and it has been taken away from me in one afternoon by a doctor I didnt know," said Troicki, whose ranking peaked at No. http://www.dodgersteamproshop.com/Dodgers-Mike-Piazza-Kids-Jersey/ . Neymar curled home a free kick from just outside the area to put the 2014 World Cup host ahead in the 44th minute. Three minutes after the break, a simple through pass from Paulinho freed Oscar and the Chelsea star rounded goalkeeper Jung Sung-ryong to extend Brazils lead. Test cricket is an anomaly in the modern world; after 30 hours of scheduled play you can still end with a draw. Of late, though, it has been under immense pressure to cut some flab, especially from the broadcasters who practically finance the game.The proposal is to bring it down to four days, allowing them to schedule it to start on Thursday and finish on the weekend. The MCC world cricket committee recognised the pressure on the format in its meeting in Mumbai, but it finished split down the middle when it came to removing a day from Tests.Two of the cricketers on the committee, Ricky Ponting and Ramiz Raja, were personally in favour of keeping the format as it is but they recognised the need for changes. We have had two days of meetings, and to be fair we spent more time as a committee debating this four-day comparison to five-day Test cricket, Ponting said.It is pretty fair to say that the committee was probably split right down the middle as far as understanding and identifying that the Test game does need some changes. Things have to change to try and make the Test game more attractive but also we are trying to protect the fabric of Test match cricket.Personally, I am very much in favour of five-day Test cricket and we only have to look back at the last 12-18 months and see how many great five-day Test matches there have been. But other guys in the committee would also like to see a trial of four-day Test cricket.Raja acknowledged he saw the benefits of a shorter Test format, but still favoured the existing model. It is a difficult debating point, he said. One big advantage with a four-day Test match is that it improves the pace of Test cricket, and there will be exciting declarations and something out of the ordinary, which may give new lease of life to Test cricket.But my biggest grief was that the lesser teams would get away with murder, they would be able to draw a game and in Test matches the best teams should win all the time, so that limited that possibility. Four-day cricket is exciting, it gives ample opportunity to broadcasters to get the peak days…end it on Saturday or Sunday, which could be great watching.But I was also in favour of five-day cricket because it has a lot of history, it is traditional and we should not tamper with a format, which has been delivering the goods. In the last year and a half, we have seen some exciting cricket.Ponting touched upon possible complications that might arise from the pressure on the pitches to deliver outright results.If we ever go to a stage where four-day Test was the way we are going, a lot of it will be down to how the wickets are prepared, he said. The one thing we dont want is more draws. No one wants to see more drawn games. We want to see entertaining Test matches be it over four or five days.Thats what we have seen of late. Very aggressive cricket when needed, very ddefensive when needed as well. Clayton Kershaw Jersey. One of the pros for four-day Tests is every Test potentially starting on Thursday and finishing on Sunday. Maybe it frees up a few more days in the international schedule. But I am all for keeping it as it is. Its the way I learned playing the game. Its the game we all enjoy playing over five days.In its press release, the MCC cricket committee outlined what they considered the pros and cons of the four-day Test debateProsClear scheduling for all stakeholders (TV, fans, players), with every Test played Thursday to Sunday on a weekly cycle.Greater crowds likely in grounds and more viewers on television for the last two days of the matches.Given that the Boards want guaranteed cricket on both days of a weekend, ideally towards the end of the game, this model makes scheduling easier and will allow tours to be shorter.Shorter tours would mean that less cricket would need to take place out of each countrys regular season, meaning fewer rain interruptions.Players would have to speed up the over rates, with suspensions for captains not meeting the required targets (though DRS does slow things down). Spinners might need to be bowled more.Play would be likely to change to a more attacking style, which might help to arrest the dwindling crowds in many countries.Clearer scheduling for grounds in relation to staffing and operational costs, with most Tests running the full four days.Broadcasters need only to pay for four days match costs, rather than five, plus their schedules are more freed up for more lucrative limited overs cricket.Evidence suggests that there would be no loss of revenue from broadcasters or sponsors if the Tests were shortened.ConsLikelihood of more drawn matches, especially those that are rain-affected, given that some matches are played in the rainy season.The dynamic of Tests would change and the statistics would be less comparable with history, particularly if limits were placed on the duration of the teams first innings, which has been mooted.There could be more doctored pitches to get results within four days, particularly if allied to increased context.It should not need a shift to four-day Tests to speed up the over rates. Many sides struggle to bowl 90 overs in six and a half hours, so it is unrealistic to think they would bowl many more in a longer day. Any additional overs are likely to be bowled by part-time bowlers.It might lead to more manufactured games, with declaration bowling and cheap runs on offer.The better team would have less chance of winning; the weaker team would have more chance of escaping with a draw.With people increasingly more time-poor, it is unrealistic to expect spectators to want to see even longer days at a Test match. 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