Usain Bolt took the baton without a lead and had his 100 meters to run to the finish line, his final 100 meters as an Olympian and...You already know what happened. He started running and emerged ahead of everyone else. He was twice their size, and wearing that Jamaican bright yellow shirt and taking those long strides, it looked like he wasn't even running that hard, while everyone else around him took a million steps to frantically try to keep up.Which they couldn't. He pulled away so fast all everyone in the race could have been thinking was the same thing they always think when running against him:Goodbye, Usain Bolt.It was great to see you. And by that, I mean it was great for the runners to see the back of his head for the past three Olympics, from Beijing to London to Rio, while it got smaller and smaller with each step he took."I've set the bar high; that's what I came here to do," Bolt told NBC after the race. "I'm extremely proud of myself."Goodbye, Usain Bolt. He and the Jamaican team won the 4x100-meter relay Friday night, beating Bolt's foil Justin Gatlin and Team USA, which was disqualified for a faulty baton pass. It was the triple-triple for Bolt, who won the 100, 200 and 4x100 gold in three straight Olympics for a total of nine gold medals.And when he was asked if he might consider coming out of retirement and pulling a Michael Phelps, he said: "No, definitely not. No, no. Definitely not.''That's probably good. We don't need to see him look human or, heaven forbid, lose. It would be like watching Superman get beat up.And for a moment in the 200 a few days ago, Bolt, who will turn 30 on Sunday, did look almost human. He tried to break the world record, tried to find another gear. But it wasn't there.He grimaced. Oh, he still won gold, but it was his slowest-ever 200 Olympic gold run, which followed his slowest 100 Olympic gold run. To be clear, he still plans to run the World Championships in the 100 next year. His retirement is from the Olympics, which have been his playground since 2008.No, just let us lock this Bolt in our memory for the generations. The magic. The huge body, even the cool name. Bolt is actually a better name than Flash, better than a superhero.So that's it. No more Usain Bolt in the Olympics. What are we going to do now' Nothing has the same feel. Phelps and Simone Biles produce the gold and America's warm feelings. But Bolt sets off the world.In some ways, Bolt redefined the Olympics. He was fun. He was carefree. And he passed his doping tests. On top of that, poor Justin Gatlin has been cast as Bolt's villain because of his two failed doping tests (one of them has been overturned) and his four-year suspension.Also, it's because Gatlin is the second-fastest runner in the world and one of the greatest in American history. The thing is, Gatlin is only the fastest human in the world. Bolt isn't human.The Olympics have needed Bolt all these years. Through Olympic doping and bribing, there was Bolt providing fun and games. See the greatest Olympian ever posing for the cameras while in the middle of breaking a world record. See the greatest Olympian ever posing in a dorm room with a bunch of young women, or waving to the crowd, or inventing a lightning Bolt stance that is copied worldwide.In the minutes before the race, NBC showed a feature of the U.S. relay team's struggles over the past few Olympics, including a dropped baton. It had each American, including Gatlin, watching a replay of it on a laptop and then sighing or saying nothing. It was gripping, serious drama, if staged, and someone in there said something about them being "defined by failure."And when the feature was over, the camera went live to the waiting area under the stands where viewers saw the four American runners sternly moving foot to foot before walking out to the track.And the camera moved back a little more, and the yellow shirts came into the picture, and there was Bolt, doubled over, laughing. There he was standing with teammate Yohan Blake. Every time the cameras went back under the stands, the U.S. four were standing separately, sternly, while the Jamaican four were sometimes laughing, sometimes joking, sometimes actually dancing.When they emerged onto the track, the Jamaican four stopped, mugged and pointed at the TV camera in unison."I needed to win and the Olympics needed me to win," Bolt said, "because the sport's going through a lot, and I would help them build it back. And that's what I did. And in the process, I became one of the greatest."It was fitting how Bolt's Olympic career ended for Gatlin, too. The Americans finished third and walked around the track draped in U.S. flags to celebrate their bronze medal. And then they found out they had been disqualified: Gatlin had received the baton before getting fully into the area where one can receive it.Bolt posed a few more times and took pictures with fans, then took selfies with them."I told you guys what I was going to do," he said. "I prepared myself, and I worked hard to get here."So goodbye, Usain Bolt. It's too bad lightning can't strike twice.
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