WHEN the drama ended here in the Bird’s Nest Stadium last night, one country had won more athletics medals than any other. But never before have the United States been so dominant while at the same time looking like a nation in danger of being left behind in the prestige events on the track.

The American men and women’s teams struck gold in the 4x400m relay finals yesterday, but over the shorter distances the spotlight fell on the Jamaican men, who beat their American counterparts in 100m and 200m sprints by five gold medals to nil. It is a scoreline that might ordinarily be kept for soccer, the sport that America do not usually excel in. It has never been a scoreline for sprinting, where the Olympic Games has been their domain.

“We could win the gold medal in every single track and field event but if we don’t win in the sprints and relays, the public will view our performance as a disaster,” said Doug Logan, the chief executive of USA Track and Field, the national governing body. “We can be a much better team. And we will be.”

An internal investigation has begun. Not since 1912 have the Americans failed to have either a men’s or women’s team in the Olympic sprint relay final.

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But more significantly, American men had won the 100m title 16 times before Usain Bolt’s astonishing triumph to secure Jamaica’s first crown at the distance. Before him, only four of his fellow countryman had even made the podium, and the last of those was Don Quarrie, 32 years ago in Montreal.

Great performances bring suspicion. It is the way of the world in a sport where the greatest woman sprinter of her generation, American Marion Jones, is a month away from completing a jail sentence for lying about using steroids. Equally, poor performances bring as many raised eyebrows.

In the midst of Bolt completing his second world-record run of the week, when he broke Michael Johnson’s 200m mark that had stood for 12 years, one of Jamaica’s leading officials looked on. “The playing field is a leveller these days,” said Warren Blake, a team doctor and one of the heads of their antidoping programme.

“Pushed by the World AntiDoping Agency and other antidoping agencies to eradicate drugs, we feel that has helped Jamaica. I think that is part of the key. We were the fifth most tested nation in the world.”

One of the men who was the biggest failure was America’s Tyson Gay, the 100m and 200m world champion. Though his run-up to the Olympics was troubled by injury, he arrived here ready to challenge Bolt. Not only did he fail to make the 100m final, he was then involved in the last-leg mix up that saw the USA drop the baton in the 4x100m semi-finals.

Gay and Allyson Felix, who was set to be the star of the 200m but for the second Olympics running was beaten to gold by Jamaican Veronica Campbell-Brown, are part of the Project Believe campaign established by the USA’s antidoping agency. It is a programme where they make themselves more available for testing than usual. But when Gay hears about level playing fields, he knows times are changing.

“You never know what someone is doing because I cannot point the finger and I cannot say it is a level playing field,” said Gay yesterday. “I am glad right now our sport has been cleaned up and there is a lot of people willing to take drug testing. I am happy with the way the sport is going.

“It is their [Jamaica’s] year. You watch other sports, and every year it is someone’s year. America are used to dominating but they are very deserving of it. It has not happened before and that is why Jamaica look much more dominant. They have medalled in a lot of premier events where we have come up short.

“It is very good for the sport. This is a new era of people, they have not been running for much longer than four years. These are not the same people when Marion Jones was running in 2003.”

Bolt is the main reason why Jamaica have become such a force. He is unstoppable. Even a fit Gay would have had trouble stopping him winning his three golds, in the 100m, the 200m and the relay, but it is the women’s sprints that are more open.

Jamaica earned a clean sweep in the 100m, led by Shelly-Ann Fraser, before Campbell-Brown retained her 200m crown. It is a surprise to many, but not the Jamaicans who have spent the past 30 years developing their athletes at the University of Technology.

Bolt trains there, but more importantly, Jamaica also has a system to teach people to coach, while they do all their can to keep their biggest stars on the island.

A population close on three million has never had it so good. But Sanya Richards, the Jamaican-born American who finished third behind Christine Ohurugou in the 400m final here, has a theory.

“I keep thinking about myself and why they are performing so well under pressure,” said Richards. “I know when I competed in Jamaica, how much fun I used to have. I think they are not letting the Olympics get to them. We are underperforming. I am sure we will come back stronger. I don’t know what we will have to do. I am going back to my roots, to watch some tapes of when I used to run in Jamaica, with no strategy.”

Bob Kersee, who coaches Felix, believes it could be down to their approach to the event. “One of the things I hope the United States learns is respect for track and field,” he said.

“I don't think we have it as much as we had in the past, and Jamaica loves track and field. They got into a contest among themselves, starting with Bolt. They got caught in the zone we couldn’t shake them out of.”

Or, as Lauryn Williams, who was involved in the dropped baton exchange that saw the American women crash out of their 4x100m semi-finals, said: “They [Jamaica] brought their A-game.”

Of that there can be no doubt.

USA v Jamaica

Jamaica won five sprint (100m, 200m and relays) golds, as well as two silvers in Beijing. The Americans took home two silver and two bronze medals

The only sprint world records the Americans hold are the women’s 100m and 200m, set by the late Florence Griffith-Joyner at Seoul in 1988. Jamaica hold all of the men’s sprint records

Prior to Beijing, Jamaica had not won an individual medal in the men’s sprints since Don Quarrie’s 200m bronze in 1980. Their last men’s relay medal was in 1984