Akani Simbine anchored South Africa's team to a silver medal finish in the men’s 4x100m relay final on Friday, coming in just behind Canada.

The quartet of Bayanda Walaza, Shaun Maswanganyi, Bradley Nkoana and Simbine clinched their country’s first ever Olympic medal in this event, silver in 37.57, ahead of the British line-up of Jeremiah Azu, Louise Hinchliffe, Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake and Zharnel Hughes who got bronze in 37.61

For 30-year-old triple Olympian Simbine, this was just reward, his first Olympic medal after two consecutive fourth-place finishes in the individual 100m final (2021 and 2024), plus a fifth place in 2016.

"This one is not just for me, man,” he said. “It’s for everybody. It’s not just for South Africa but for the world. I’ve had so much support from guys that I run against, from guys who are athletes. They have always been saying: ‘We were rooting for you’.”

The shocks came early in the men’s 4x100m at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games when sprint powerhouse Jamaica failed to qualify for the final, and kept on coming in the medal race, where a disastrous first change brought the favoured USA team undone.

That left Canada to take advantage of the chaos, and show what a cool, calm, collected and well-rehearsed relay team can do, regardless of a damp track and light rain.

The Canadian quartet of Aaron Brown, Jerome Blake, Brendan Rodney and Andre De Grasse has been virtually unchanged for the last Olympiad and it showed on Friday (9).

Tokyo Olympic 200m champion De Grasse anchored the four to silver three years ago, and they went on to claim the world title the following year in Oregon.

Individually, they have not been in the best of form in Paris – De Grasse’s title defence ended in the semifinals in the 200m – but together they remain a potent force.

Running in the outside lane, their slick changeovers put them in front when De Grasse took the baton and he held off the charging South African anchorman Akani Simbine to claim Canada’s first gold medal in this event since 1996, in 37.50.

“Individuals didn’t go our way but when we come together, we’re a real strong team,” Brown said. “You can never count us out, we feel great.”

De Grasse added: “It feels pretty amazing. To be out with these guys, my brothers, I’ve been with them since the beginning of time, so it’s amazing.

"We talked about this moment for years. It feels good to bring it to fruition. I’m super grateful.”

The British team was also celebrating.

“We haven’t dropped a baton in ages,” Mitchell-Blake said. “We’re a dream team. Once again, we showed we stepped up as a quartet, as a nation, and I’m proud of the boys.”

The defending champion Italy, with Tokyo Olympic 100m champion Marcell Jacobs running the second leg, finished just short of the medals in fourth (37.68), but ahead of the perennially competitive Japan (37.78) and the home team France (37.81).

The US anchorman Fred Kerley, the bronze medallist in the 100m, crossed the finish line in seventh place (37.89), but his team was soon disqualified because the baton had not been exchanged within the designated area at the first change.

The US team’s performance showed the disruption in its final preparation after Olympic 100m champion Noah Lyles was left out of the team. Lyles had finished with the bronze medal in the 200m final on Thursday (8) and revealed that he had been struggling with Covid symptoms for some days, indicating on social media that he would not run the relay.

Kenny Bednarek, the 200m silver medallist, was recruited and allotted the second leg, receiving the baton from 2019 world 100m champion Christian Coleman and passing to Kyree King.

Unfortunately, Bednarek took off too early for Coleman to catch him, then came to almost a dead stop as he approached the end of the changeover box, where Coleman all but slammed into his back. They did not manage to exchange the baton within the zone, and that was effectively the end of their challenge.

“Me and Kenny have been on the team a few times, and we felt really confident going out there,” Coleman said. “It just didn’t happen this time. It’s part of the sport.”

Despite winning two of the three medals in the 100m, the No.1 athletics nation departed without a medal.

The USA has won this event 15 times since 1912, and fell short of the gold only once in an extraordinary sequence from 1920 and 1976 (disqualified in 1960), but has found ever more inventive ways to lose this race in the 21st century.

The last US sprint relay team to triumph at the Olympics was in Sydney in 2000. Since then, five different countries have taken the spoils: Great Britain (2004), Trinidad and Tobago (2008), Jamaica (2012, 2016), Italy (2020) and now Canada.