Nobody can hold a candle to Usain Bolt and, alas, nobody in the Great Britain relay teams appears able to hold a baton properly. For the second night running, a medal chance disappeared in a botched changeover that made a mockery of all those training camps.

And then we found that Lightning strikes thrice.

Jacques Rogge, the IOC president, may have doubts about Bolt’s manners, but he is the best thing this side of a Swiss finishing school. He ran the third leg of Jamaica’s record-breaking 4 x 100 metres run, handed the baton to Asafa Powell and celebrated a time of 37.10sec that was another nail in the sprint coffin of the United States. The demise of the record set by the US at the 1992 Games was a passing of a metaphorical baton. Would that Britain could pass a real one. The night after the men exited, the women did the same as Montell Douglas and Emily Freeman made an almighty mess. Freeman had suggested that it was down to the women “to pick up the baton”, but she never even got hold of it.

Bolt, though, can do no wrong. The team of Nesta Carter, Michael Frater, Bolt and Asafa Powell won by almost a second. Trinidad & Tobago were second with Japan third. To add a backhanded insult to injury, Frater said that he had practised with Bolt for only the second time yesterday. “Relay running is about practice and intelligence,” Frater added. “Today we used more intelligence than practice.”

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Quite what Britain used is up for debate. Even their one gold medal-winner, Christine Ohuruogu, was cruising so comfortably in the 4 x 400 metres heats, she almost was pipped by a German for a place in the final.

So these are now officially the Games of Bolt and Jamaica. “It’s because of my genes,” Frater said when questioned about the secret. “We are born on the international stage.” Bolt, who is becoming a dab hand in one-liners, added: “Jamaican sprinters are taking over the world.”

The sweep in the women’s 100 metres, only the second in any Olympic track event, Veronica Cambell-Brown’s 200 metres defence and Bolt’s three gold medals and three world records, a record in itself, provide conclusive proof.

Listen to the Jamaica quartet and it seems their secret was in getting up late, tucking into a burger and having a laugh on the back of minimal practice. Britain do things differently, albeit the absence of four runners with frightening pace means they have to.

When push came to shove, and much has been made of the £150,000-a-year investment into the relay, technical detail and push pass, Freeman was left clutching air. Douglas, the bright young thing of British sprinting, roared up behind Freeman, the third member of the team, but failed to hand on the baton. “I called ‘Hand’ to Emily,” she said. “There was a good distance between us but the timing was out. I have never experienced that, clashing and colliding.” Britain put in a protest under rule 163.2 because they felt that Sherone Simpson had run out of lane and into Douglas. Had the protest been upheld, the race could have been rerun. But it was not. Jamaica bowed out in chaos too, Simpson using the baton as a back-scratcher for Kerron Stewart. “The moment I went to put the baton in, I knew it was not going to,” Douglas said. “I shouted stop. I saw the end of the box. It was too late.”

To compound the misery for Britain, the final was won by Russia, their nearest rivals in the overall medals table.

Jade Johnson was seventh in the long jump final and departed with some acidic comments on the winner, one-time doping offender Maurren Higa Maggi, of Brazil. “I was hoping anyone would beat her,” she said. Tirunesh Dibaba, of Ethiopia, completed the 10,000 metres and 5,000 metres double, while Britain have more relay chances today in the 4 x 400 metres. The women squeaked through their heat and the men were fastest qualifiers, Martyn Rooney even show-boating down the home straight, no doubt to the chagrin of Rogge.

The Jamaicans seemed almost amused by Rogge’s remarks about Bolt’s postrace antics. “Why criticise him?” Powell asked. “The USA used to do things. Nobody criticised them.”

Nobody else is criticising Bolt as he writes his name into the history books and out of Debrett’s.