Watch Usain Bolt’s last career race, live on NBC Sports

By Nick ZaccardiAug 11, 2017, 12:58 PM EDT

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Will Usain Bolt end his career with a gold medal? Find out in the 4x100m relay at the world championships, live on NBC Sports on Saturday.

One week after Bolt’s bronze in the 100m, he is expected to headline the Jamaican relay team in the last scheduled race of his illustrious career.

In fact, Bolt is favored to run in both the morning heats and the final, according to Reuters and the Jamaica Gleaner newspaper.

If so, it would mark the first time Bolt races the relay heats at a global championship, after helping Jamaica to silver at the 2007 Worlds and gold at the 2008, 2012 and 2016 Olympics and 2009, 2011, 2013 and 2015 Worlds.

Jamaica later was stripped of the 2008 relay gold due to Nesta Carter‘s doping punishment.

WATCH LIVE: 4x100m relay HEATS — 5 a.m. ET (NBCSN) — STREAM LINK
WATCH LIVE: 4x100m relay FINAL — 3 p.m. ET (NBC) — STREAM LINK
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The U.S. is expected to be Jamaica’s primary competition, though it hasn’t beaten the Jamaicans in a global championship relay since 2007.

But Jamaica has never been shallower in the sprints during the Bolt era than it is now. Not ony have Bolt and 2012 Olympic 100m silver medalist Yohan Blake slowed, but stalwarts Asafa Powell and Carter have also aged and didn’t make the world team.

The Americans, meanwhile, boast 100m gold and silver medalists Justin Gatlin and Christian Coleman.

The third and fourth legs for both the U.S. and Jamaica are more questionable.

The key will be clean baton handoffs. The Americans have botched the relay consistently, missing the podium due to bad exchanges or disqualifications at five of the last six global championships.

Jamaica is much cleaner passing the stick, plus it has the biggest intangible in its favor: Bolt likely on anchor, which could intimidate whoever is running the last leg for the Americans if it’s a close race.

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Coco Gauff into French Open quarterfinals, where Iga Swiatek may await

By OlympicTalkJun 5, 2023, 11:52 AM EDT

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Coco Gauff swept into the French Open quarterfinals, where she could play Iga Swiatek in a rematch of last year’s final.

Gauff, the sixth seed, beat 100th-ranked Slovakian Anna Karolina Schmiedlova 7-5, 6-2 in the fourth round. She next plays Swiatek or 66th-ranked Ukrainian Lesia Tsurenko, who meet later Monday.

Gauff earned a 37th consecutive win over a player ranked outside the top 50, dating to February 2022. She hasn’t faced a player in the world top 60 in four matches at Roland Garros, but the degree of difficulty is likely to ratchet up in Wednesday’s quarterfinals.

Swiatek won all 12 sets she’s played against Gauff, who at 19 is the only teenager in the top 49 in the world.

FRENCH OPEN DRAWS: Women | Men | Broadcast Schedule

Also Monday, No. 7 seed Ons Jabeur of Tunisia dispatched 36th-ranked American Bernarda Pera 6-3, 6-1, breaking all eight of Pera’s service games.

Jabeur, runner-up at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open last year, has now reached the quarterfinals of all four majors.

Jabeur next faces 14th-seeded Beatriz Haddad Maia, who won 6-7 (3), 6-3, 7-5 over Spaniard Sara Sorribes Tormo, who played on a protected ranking of 68. Haddad Maia became the second Brazilian woman to reach a Grand Slam quarterfinal in the Open Era (since 1968) after Maria Bueno, who won seven majors from 1959-1966.

Pera, a 28 year-old born in Croatia, was the oldest U.S. singles player to make the fourth round of a major for the first time since Jill Craybas at 2005 Wimbledon. Her defeat left Gauff as the lone American singles player remaining out of the 35 entered in the main draws.

The last American to win a major singles title was Sofia Kenin at the 2020 Australian Open. The 11-major drought matches the longest in history (since 1877) for American men and women combined.

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U.S. earns first three-peat in Para hockey world championship history

By OlympicTalkJun 5, 2023, 8:49 AM EDT

International Paralympic Committee

The U.S. trounced rival Canada 6-1 to become the first nation to three-peat in world Para hockey championship history.

Tournament MVP Declan Farmer scored twice, and Josh Misiewicz, David Eustace, Jack Wallace and Kevin McKee added goals. Jen Lee made eight saves in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, on Sunday.

Farmer, who had nine goals in five games for the tournament, also scored twice in Paralympic final wins over Canada in 2018 and 2022 and the last world championship final against Canada in 2021. Farmer, 25, already owns the career national team record of more than 250 points.

The U.S. beat Canada in a third consecutive world final dating to 2019, but this was the most lopsided gold-medal game in championship history. The U.S. also won the last four Paralympic titles dating to 2010.

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