ATHENS, Greece -- Maurice Greene took the baton and accelerated toward the finish. He quickly shook a Nigerian and started reeling in Britain's Mark Lewis-Francis.
But even the self-proclaimed greatest sprinter of all time could not make up for a sloppy handoff earlier in the race Saturday, and the Americans were forced to settle for silver by an excruciating hundredth of a second.
Lewis-Francis crossed the finish line and turned to yell in Greene's direction. The mighty men of U.S. sprinting, who had dominated these Olympics with five of the six medals in the 100 and 200, had lost the relay for only the fifth time in Olympic history.
One night earlier, a bad handoff from Marion Jones to 100 silver medalist Lauryn Williams knocked the heavily favored U.S. women out of their 400 relay. With the men's second-place finish, this is the first non-boycotted Olympics in which Americans failed to win gold in at least one of the 400 relays.
In yesterday's race, a sloppy baton pass from 100-meter winner Justin Gatlin to Coby Miller in the middle of the race left Greene too much ground to make up.
"Because of the crowd noise I couldn't hear Gatlin call 'stick,"' Miller said. "So I slowed down, because if I had run out of my pass zone we wouldn't have won a medal at all."
Earlier last night, Hicham El Guerrouj became the first man in 80 years to win the 1,500 and 5,000 meters at one Olympics, holding up two fingers in triumph after outsprinting the world record holder down the final straightaway of the 5,000.
But El Guerrouj, who won the 1,500 on Tuesday, was only the second person within a half-hour to pull off a rare middle-distance double. Briton Kelly Holmes won the 1,500 just before El Guerrouj's race, adding to the 800 title she won on Monday.
Despite victories in the men's and women's 1,600-meter relays, it was another disappointing night at the track for an American team that came to Athens expecting a sweep of the four relays. Instead, they took gold in both 1,600-meter relays.
Breaux Greer, who had hoped to become the first American to win the javelin since Cyrus Young in 1952, finished last of the 12th finalists with a best throw of 243 feet, 11 inches -- nearly 43 feet off his personal best. Greer was competing despite a torn knee ligament that required him to wear a plastic brace on his right leg.
The U.S. team ended up with 24 track and field medals, the most since 30 in 1992. The men had 18 of those -- also the best showing by Americans since 1992 -- but the women's six medals were the fewest since three in 1976.
In the men's relay, Greene took the baton in second place. With a burst of speed in the final 30 meters, he made up some of the gap behind Lewis-Francis -- but just failed to catch him.
The British won in 38.07 seconds, and the Americans won silver in 38.08 -- after saying for days they would smash the world record of 37.40. Nigeria took bronze.
The United States has won the men's relay 15 of the 20 times it has been run, not including the boycotted 1980 Moscow Games. But the Americans have failed to win the relay in three of the last five Olympics.
El Guerrouj, a Moroccan, passed Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia with about 50 meters left and finished in 13 minutes, 14.39 seconds, smiling and extending his arms in triumph as he crossed the finish line. He kissed his hands and his right knee before touching his head to the track in prayer.
Then he took off his new shoes and ran a victory lap in bare but bandaged feet. He had worn shoes that were too small during qualifying.
Bekele, who was trying to become the first man in 24 years to win the 5,000 and 10,000 at an Olympics, finished second in 13:14.59. Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya, who led until the final lap, won bronze in 13:15.10.
The only other man ever to win the 1,500 and 5,000 in an Olympics was Paavo Nurmi, who did it in 1924.
Holmes broke free of the pack in the final 100 meters to capture gold in the 1,500 in 3:57.90. The 34-year-old former army sergeant became the third woman in Olympic history to win both events at one games, joining Svetlana Masterkova in 1996 and Tatyana Kazankina in 1976.
Tatyana Tomashova of Russia won the silver in 3:58.12. Maria Cioncan of Romania got the bronze in 3:58.39.
Other winners Saturday, the last night of track and field action at Olympic Stadium, included a pair of Russians -- Yuriy Borzakovskiy rallied from fourth place on the final straightaway to win the men's 800 meters and Yelena Slesarenko set an Olympic record of 6-9 to win gold in the women's high jump.
