McClatchy Washington Bureau

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BEIJING — In two different quadrants of this endless city Saturday night, a couple hours apart, Sanya Richards and Sylvia Fowles finished their Olympic quests with gold medals.

Richards did it on the track, in a thrilling comeback.

Fowles did it in the arena, in a thorough rout.

Once they knew they had won, they threw their hands emphatically in the air, then around their teammates.

On the penultimate eve of the Beijing Games, two young women from South Florida got what they came all this way for - gold, embedded with jade, attached to a red silk ribbon. But more than the prize, they got a sense of satisfaction. They can march in Sunday's closing ceremonies secure in the knowledge that hard work transported them to their goals.

One found consolation, the other confirmation.

Richards returned to Bird's Nest Stadium four days after the most disappointing loss of her career and ran the anchor leg of the 4x400-meter relay with the kind of closing command missing from her open 400.

Whereas on Tuesday she had tied up and shut down, on Sunday she calmed down and loosened up, catching and passing Russia's Anastasia Kapachinskaya in the final 50 meters to win the race for the U.S. in a time of 3:18.54.

"I just had fun," said Richards, 23, who grew up in Pembroke Pines and graduated from Fort Lauderdale St. Thomas Aquinas High. "It's so different than when you're the rabbit. Tonight I chased. I knew what I wanted to do for my team."

Richards said it was the best relay leg she's ever run and the first time she had to come from behind for the U.S. at a major meet. As she crossed the line, she high-fived the air with the baton.

"I thought we'd have a lead before I got the stick, and when I saw the Russian team ahead of us, it really pumped me up and I was excited to go for it," she said.

An hour after Richards' victory, on the west side of town, the U.S. basketball team began trouncing Australia. As the Aussies would say, oy, oy, oy! By the time it was over, the U.S. - and center Lisa Leslie - had won its fourth consecutive Olympic gold medal with a 92-65 win and Fowles had cemented her place as Leslie's successor. Fowles, 22, who grew up in Liberty City and graduated from Gulliver High, scored 13 points and grabbed five rebounds in 18 minutes.

She is the U.S. basketball team's center of the future. Richards could be the U.S. track and field team's sprinter of the future.

"Sylvia has been like a sponge soaking it all in and she is more than ready to take the torch and run with it," Leslie said of her apprentice as four gold medals clanked around her neck. She brought the golds she won in Athens, Sydney and Atlanta to Beijing, just so she could wear all four.

The 6-5 Fowles was a self-described "mama's girl" who liked to sew until her siblings toughened her up on the basketball court. She thought of them as she stepped onto the medal podium. She planned to call big brother Morris, who is serving a 25-year sentence for murder, as soon as she could; he's her biggest fan. Her mother Arrittio Fowles was watching from the stands.

"I felt my knees buckle and get weak," Fowles said. "I thought I was going to fall."

She's been on a whirlwind since LSU's appearance in the NCAA Final Four, the WNBA draft and Olympic training camp. Every time she subbed for Leslie, Leslie told her, "DJ, keep the party rolling." The U.S. did, extending its Olympic winning streak to 33 games. Fowles will take over Leslie's role.

"Lisa is admired by a lot of young women and I'm one of them," Fowles said.

Both Richards' and Fowles' victories ended with huddling and hugging.

Richards' memorable comeback and 48.93-second leg made up partially for her bronze-medal performance in the 400. Not totally, she said, because she expected to win it. She was winning it until she said her left hamstring "grabbed" with 80 meters to go.

"The first night I probably slept for 30 minutes because I couldn't stop thinking about it," said Richards, who blamed dehydration for the problem. "I actually went and stayed with my family. I thought it was the best place for me to be and we started talking about other things and they tried to help me forget about the race. It's hard. After working for four years and coming up short, I don't think that memory will go away overnight. So I think about it a lot, but at least now I have something positive to think about as well."

Richards and gymnast Shawn Johnson, 16, have developed a friendship during the past year. They attended each other's events in Beijing. They commiserated with each other when they came up short of gold - Johnson in the all-around competition.

"She had a rough Olympics like me,"

Pressure quadruples at the Olympics.

It's also "addictive," as Fowles described it.

That's why she and Richards will be back, and 2012 will be here before they know it.