There was no showboating in the all-Jamaican showdown, but Usain Bolt still came out on top to underline his status as the man who has saved sprinting from a suspicious death. In a packed stadium in Brussels, Bolt overcame a sluggish start and wet track to record 9.77sec, overhauling in-form Asafa Powell in the last 40 metres.

With Powell having recorded 9.72 in Lausanne on Tuesday, equalling the second-fastest time ever, hopes were high for a true test of Bolt's ability to keep trotting out treats. We got it and he did. Powell's time was an impressive 9.83 and Nesta Carter and Michael Frater ensured that Jamaicans occupied the top four places in the Golden League finale.

The promoters of the Memorial Van Damme had made much of getting Bolt, Powell and Tyson Gay in the same race. Make that same country, Gay deciding that he did not want to risk another hamstring strain and jeopardise his build-up towards his world-title defence in Berlin next year. Bolt and Powell more than compensated.

Usually, there is an end-of-term feeling about post-Olympic meetings and that had been summed up on Tuesday by the Russian high jumper who competed while allegedly drunk on vodka in Lausanne. Under the influence and the bar, Ivan Ukhov achieved the considerable achievement of almost missing the crash mat. Bolt's rivals must have looked almost as comical of late, chugging home with a monumental headache and fanciful stories of a flying man. This, however, was a race rather than exhibition.

Whatever psychological blows were struck in the King Baudouin Stadium, it was always going to be Bolt who went home to Jamaica today as the yam-eating, nugget-munching, Rogge-worrying national hero. An astonishing performance at the Olympic Games last month made a mockery of debates about whether he should double up and he is now arguably the only athlete to enjoy mainstream acclaim around the world. Most of that is down to the three world records and three gold medals he claimed in Beijing, but Bolt also has a charisma and flamboyance that rain-sodden nights in Brussels need.

In Golden League terms, Bolt played second fiddle to Pamela Jelimo versus Blanka Vlasic. They make an intriguing pair, the Kenyan 800 metres prodigy who has been bothering a 24-year-old world record and the Croatian high jumper who was in danger of tripping over her bottom lip in Beijing, such was her gloomy mood after missing out on Olympic gold. A win for either would have guaranteed them at least a half-share of the $1 million (about £500,000) jackpot for winning their event at each of the season's Golden League meetings.

Bolt may be the story of the season, but Jelimo's rise has been more meteoric. When Bolt was winning a world junior title at the age of just 15, thus belying all those Beijing stories about the boy from nowhere, Jelimo has shaken middle-distance running off its axis. She was Africa's top 400 metres junior only last year but stepped up in distance on the advice of Janeth Jepkosgei, her compatriot, and says that she is doing it for her mother, who was denied the chance to be an athlete because of sexual stereotyping.

A smattering of Britons were in action, with Mo Farah bouncing back from a disappointing Olympics to record a season's best of 13min 8.11sec in the 5,000 metres. It was good enough for him to finish fourth in a race won by Eliud Kipchoge, the Kenyan, and made you wonder why he ran 42 seconds slower in Beijing. One for Charles van Commenee to address if, as expected, he is announced as UK Athletics's new head coach this month.