The U.S. men's 4x400 relay team scored the U.S. track contingent's first Olympic record of the 2008 Beijing Games on the last full day of competition at the Bird's Nest before the Ganes close Sunday evening.
The women's 4x400 relay team also won gold behind a gutsy anchor leg from Sanya Richards, who caught and passed her Russian counterpart in the final 50 meters.
The victories reclaimed some dignity for a U.S. track and field team that has struggled in these games.
MEN'S 4x400: La Shawn Merritt said after the race that gold medals go to those who want it the most. The Americans, who had swept the individual 400, showed they did, blowing away the field.
Merritt, Angelo Taylor, David Neville and Jeremy Wariner recorded an Olympic record time of 2:55:39, breaking a 16-year-old record set by the U.S. in Barcelona in 1992.
"We are the best 400-meter guys in the world," Neville said. "When we got out here as a group, we had one goal: To get the gold."
The Bahamas earned the silver at 2:58.03. The Russian Federation finished third for the bronze at 2:58.06.
WOMEN'S 4x400: Richards had to chase down Russian anchor runner Anastasia Kapachinskaya, passing her less than 10 meters from the tape and pumping her first in the air at the end.
Mary Wineberg, Allyson Felix, Monique Henderson and Richards came home in a time of 3:18.54. Henderson and Richards both ran for the gold-medal winning team in Athens in 2004.
"I felt strong and I could feel her kind of breaking down a bit," Richards said. "At about 120 [meters] she was still going so I tried to push her. ... But it's a different mentality when you're chasing. ... Yeah, I like it better."
Russia took silver in 3:18.82, and Jamaica won the bronze at 3:20.40.
Richards and Felix were favored in the 400 and 200, respectively, winning bronze and silver in their races.
When they talked before the race, they agreed that they had not come all this way to go home without a gold medal.
WOMEN'S 1,500: Former Duke star Shannon Rowbury had a big smile on her face and an energetic shimmy in her hips for the NBC cameras before the women's 1,500-meter run.
But after drafting along in fourth and fifth place, Rowbury couldn't get up and go when everyone else got up and went during the final leg.
Kenya's Nancy Jebet Langat sprinted away from the field in the final 100 meters in a time of 4:00.23 for the gold medal. Iryna Lishchynska of the Ukraine won the silver (4:01.63) and her teammate Nataliya Tobias won bronze (4:01.78).
Rowbury, competing in her first Olympics, finished seventh in 4:03.58.
That was the highest an American has ever placed at that distance in the Olympics.
"I didn't quite have the extra gear in the last 200," Rowbury said. "It's always a little disappointing when all things don't come together. But it's the Olympics so I can't complain."
MEN'S 5,000: USA runner Bernard Lagat developed an infection in his throat two days ago and labored during the men's 5,000-meter finals.
It showed when gold-medal winner Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia sprinted for the finish in an Olympic record time of 12:57.82.
Kenyan teammates Eliud Kipchoge and Edwin Cheruiyot Soi won silver and bronze in 13:02.80 and 13:06.22 respectively.
"My coach said before, it doesn't matter the results," said Lagat, who won the World Championships in the 5,000 in 2007. "I was going to hang out with guys and follow them. At some point they went and I could not go. I got slower and slower and slower."
WOMEN'S HIGH JUMP: Belgium's Tia Hellebaut, 30, pulled the upset, clearing a personal best and Belgian record of 2.05 meters to win the gold medal over defending world champion Blanka Vlasic, 24, of Croatia, who had been dominating meets coming into the Olympics.
U.S. jumper Chaunte Howard finished sixth with a jump of 1.99 meters.