OSAKA, Japan -- Tyson Gay collected a third gold medal at the world championships when he helped the United States win the 4x100-meter relay Saturday in 37.78 seconds.
The U.S. women also retained their title in the 4x100 relay, as Torri Edwards held off 100-meter champion Veronica Campbell of Jamaica on the anchor leg Saturday.
In the men's relay, Gay ran the third leg on the bend and handed off to Leroy Dixon, who held off world record holder Asafa Powell on the straightaway.
Powell's Jamaicans were second in a national record 37.89 and Britain was third.
Gay won the 100 and 200 sprints. The relay title makes him only the third man to win triple golds at a single world championships meet.
Carl Lewis did it in 1983 and 1987, combining the 100, 4x100 relay and long jump. Maurice Greene did it in 1999 at Seville, winning the 100, 200 and relay.
The American women won in 41.98 seconds to give Allyson Felix gold medals on successive days. She won the 200 on Friday night, when Campbell placed second.
Campbell closed in on Edwards over the last 50 meters, but could not quite close the gap. The Jamaicans finished in 42.01 in a repeat of the first and second places at the 2005 world championships.
Belgium beat Britain for an unexpected bronze medal.
In other results Saturday, Olympic 5,000 meters champion Meseret Defar and Czech decathlete gold medalist Roman Sebrle won world titles to go with their Olympic crowns.
In the absence of Ethiopian teammate and defending champion Tirunesh Dibaba, Defar ran a perfect tactical race, never got boxed in and had little trouble staying right behind long-leading Kenyan Vivian Cheruiyot.
Defar took the lead with two laps to go and kicked for home entering the final bend. Everyone else was running for silver from then on.
Defar finished in 14 minutes, 57.91 seconds, more than 40 seconds off the pace of her world record. Blame the sweltering heat at a sold-out Nagai Stadium for that.
Cheruiyot took silver, 0.59 seconds later and fellow-Kenyan Priscah Jepleting Cherono earned bronze.
The race had been hotly anticipated because of the bitter rivalry between Defar and Dibaba. The 10,000 champion, however, pulled out after she was exhausted from abdominal pains during her come-from-behind win last weekend.
Sebrle, the Olympic decathlon champion and world record holder, added another title to his resume Saturday.
The 32-year-old Czech moved into No. 1 position with a personal best of 233 feet, 6 inches in the javelin, earning him a 44-point lead over Jamaica's Maurice Smith with only the 1,500 meters remaining.
Sebrle stayed within 10 meters of Smith in the 1,500 to ensure victory, finishing with 8,676 points.
Smith, who led from the third event until the ninth, took silver with 8,644 points and Dmitriy Karpov of Kazakhstan got bronze with 8,586.
Two American hopes failed to finish: defending champion Bryan Clay withdrew after injuring his right leg in the high jump and 2003 winner Tom Pappas pulled out with a foot injury after the hurdles.
Clay led after two disciplines but was ranked third by the time he pulled out following the fourth event. Pappas was in sixth spot when he withdrew.
In the men's pole vault, Brad Walker of the United States won the world title with a jump of 19 feet, 2½ inches, edging France's Romain Mesnil. German Danny Ecker took bronze.
Walker won silver two years ago at the world championships in Helsinki and was the year's leading vaulter.
Mesnil also cleared 19-2¾, but did so on his second attempt. Walker got over on his first.
Ecker cleared 19-¾.
Defending champion Rens Blom of the Netherlands did not compete.
Australia's Nathan Deakes won the 50-kilometer walk in 3 hours, 43 minutes, 53 seconds. Yohan Diniz was next in 3:44:22, giving France its first medal in Osaka, and Alex Schwazer of Italy took bronze.
"I guess I will remember forever the feeling when I came into the stadium and it was clear I'm the champion,'' said Deakes, who was in tears as he approached the finish. "It was quite emotional.''
Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press
Source: ESPN.com
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