TYSON GAY picked up a third gold medal and Team USA continued to dominate in sprinting events by winning the 4x100 metres relay at the World Championships in Osaka yesterday. Gay, who already possessed the 100m and 200m gold medals, was pivotal for the Americans as they reclaimed the title lost when they were disqualified two years in Helsinki.

Gay took the baton from Wallace Spearmon and ran a perfect curve on the vital third leg. While his handover to LeRoy Dixon was not slick, the US anchorman did just enough to hold off world record holder Asafa Powell of Jamaica. Gay cherished this latest award, which saw him match the achievement of his hero Maurice Greene, who also bagged a full set of winner's medals at the 1999 event.

"My goal was to produce the biggest possible lead for our last runner, " Gay said.

"Our hand-off was not the best one, so I tried to push him a little bit and cheered him to make it to the line first. It felt great. It is the teamwork."

It was a thrilling close to an evening for the United States, with Brad Walker having won the pole vault and the US women claiming 4x100 relay gold. Allyson Felix, a day after defending her 200m title, collected a second gold after running a superb second leg in the sprint relay.

Lauryn Williams handed over to Felix whose long stride devoured the rubber down the back straight. She then handed the baton to Mikele Barber, who ran a superb bend passing to Torri Edwards . . . the 2003 short sprint gold medalist . . . who completed the task ahead of Jamaica and Belgium. The quartet clocked a world-leading time . . . the seventh fastestever . . . of 41.98 seconds.

Jamaica had a season's best 42.07secs with Belgium posting a national record of 42.75.

This year's world leader in pole vault, Walker shared the same height of 5.86 metres alongside Romain Mesnil but beat the Frenchman on countback with Germany's Danny Ecker vaulting 5.81m for bronze.

Both Sanya Richards and Felix were rested for the 4x400m relay semi-finals.

Like the men's 4x400m outfit, gold medals appear to be on the cards at Sunday's finals.

Deedee Trotter, Monique Hennagan, Mary Wineberg and Natasha Hastings dominated the race for the USA, coasting easily to victory in a world leading 3mins 23.37secs. As for the men, even without Jeremy Wariner and LaShawn Merritt who were saving energy for the final, they were even more impressive.

Berwyn Jackson, Kerron Clement, Darold Williamson and Angelo Taylor ran their legs well and finished ahead of Germany and Poland.