J.J. Johnson ran down Britain's European champion Dwain Chambers in the straight to snatch the 4x100m relay title for the US on the final day of the world championships on Sunday.
Facing the grim prospect of finishing an Olympic Games or world championships for the first time without a gold in either sprint relay, the men's team rose to the challenge.
Weakened by the absence of Olympic champion Maurice Greene and world record holder Tim Montgomery, they trailed Britain on the second and third legs.
PHOTO: REUTERS
On the anchor leg Johnson, a former college basketballer and American footballer who was on the victorious American team in Edmonton two years ago, showed his mental strength.
He set off in chase of Chambers and overhauled the Briton just ahead of the line before leading the Americans on a victory lap.
Johnson said he was always confident he could overtake Chambers.
"I have caught Maurice Greene and he's the fastest," he said.
"Things had to change and we are the new breed," said lead-off runner John Capel. "We are here now and we are not going anywhere for a while."
American 100 champion Bernard Williams said the exchanges had been ragged.
"But JJ has been known to walk down the likes of Maurice Greene and Tim Montgomery," he said.
A disconsolate Chambers said: "He did me on the line but at least I got a medal. It should have been gold."
The US women's 4x400 relay team won a second gold and individual 400 champion Jerome Young anchored the men's team to victory, holding off fast-finishing Frenchman Marc Raquil over the final meters.
The US finished top of the medals table with 10 golds ahead of Russia, who collected six.
Ethiopia, the success story of the championships, were third with three golds and the Kenyan national anthem finally sounded in the Stade de France.
The Ethiopians' great African rivals had managed only a silver and a bronze before Sunday but picked up two golds on Sunday to finish equal seventh with South Africa.
World junior cross country champion Eliud Kipchoge seized his moment to upstage Hicham El Guerrouj and Kenenisa Bekele and win the 5,000m in a championship record 12 minutes 53.12 seconds.
El Guerrouj and Bekele had both been aiming for unprecedented world doubles. Moroccan El Guerrouj had already won the 1,500 and Bekele outsprinted his illustrious compatriot Haile Gebrselassie to win the 10,000 last weekend.
Kipchoge, the second youngest Kenyan world champion, kicked from an already fierce pace in the straight to win a three-may battle.
"With three laps to go I felt quite strong and I knew I had a chance," said Kipchoge. "I followed Hicham and decided to kick at the end."
Former world marathon record holder Catherine Ndereba won Kenya's first gold of the championships in the day's opening event in a championships record two hours 23 minutes 55 seconds.
Russian Tatyana Tomashova provided one of the upsets of the Paris festival when she overhauled European champion and gold medal favorite Sureyya Ayhan of Turkey to win the women's world 1,500m title.
The 28-year-old, 2002 European bronze medalist, passed a tiring Ayhan in the final 20m to win in three minutes 58.52 seconds, a lifetime best.
"I knew it would be a tactical race and I wanted to kick at the end," said Tomashova.
"With about a lap to go I felt that the pace was too slow and it surprised me. I could see that the others around me were tired, so I just hung in there and came away at the end."
Algeria's Djabir Said-Guerni outsprinted Russian Yuriy Borzakovskiy for a narrow victory in the men's 800m.
Defending champion Hestrie Cloete won the high jump for South Africa but missed three attempts on Stefka Kostadinova's 16-year-old world record of 2.10m.
Russian Sergey Makarov won his first major title with victory in the men's javelin.
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