"There you go, I am the greatest,” he said.

"I am just relieved.

“It's happened.

"I am just happy, proud of myself.

"It's come true.

"The pressure is real.

"I look at it as an accomplishment.

"I'll stay up late tonight."

The only faint cloud on Bolt’s horizon is the fact that one of his team-mates in the Beijing 2008 4x100m relay win, Nesta Carter, had a banned stimulant discovered when the World Anti-Doping Agency conducted 454 retrospective tests of athletes at those Games, and all four golds now stand to be forfeited under the rules the International Association of Athletics Federation introduced in 2003.

But whatever number Bolt’s Olympic haul turns out to be, tonight he is perfect.

No-one has ever achieved an Olympic record such as his, and it is quite likely that no-one else ever will.

Since he electrified the Bird’s Nest Stadium in Beijing with his opening flourish of a 100m in a world record time of 9.69sec, Bolt has been at the epicentre of the Olympics’ centrepiece sport, and he is not just a hard but an impossible act to follow.

At 29, as he admitted after claiming his third Olympic 200m title yesterday evening, he feels he is getting old.

The plan is for him to sign off his career at next year’s International Association of Athletics Federations World Championships in London, but he has said that if he does so, he will probably just run the 100m and the relay.

For now, however, it is enough to revel in what he has achieved within the Olympic arena.

For the 34-year-old, twice banned US sprinter Justin Gatlin, who assumed pantomime villain status here as crowds booed him when he was introduced, the evening ended unhappily.

The US 4x100m team were beaten to silver by a super-motivated and orchestrated Japanese quartet which set an Asian record of 37.60, and had just completed their lap of honour, draped in the Stars and Stripes, when they looked up to the big scoreboard to see they had been disqualified, with Canada - who clocked a national record of 37.64 - stepping up to the podium.

"It was the twilight zone, it was a nightmare,” said Gatlin

“You work so hard with your teammates, guys you compete against almost all year long.

“All that hard work just crumbles.”

But he was not entirely cast down.

“I never said this was my last Olympics,” he added.

“This Olympics has made me hungry for the World Championships next year [in London].

“I'm 34 - you guys thought I couldn't run this fast at 34.

“At 35 I'm going to be even faster."

The US men’s counterparts made no such mistake, having earned their place in the final through an individual time trial after a successful appeal against disqualification, and they claimed the women’s 4x100m gold in 41.01, the second fastest time ever run behind the 40.82 which the US quartet achieved at London 2012.

For Allyson Felix, who featured in both teams, it was a golden finale to an Olympics where her early season ambitions of completing a 200m/400m double had come down to a silver medal in the 400m.

Shock of the night was the defeat of Almaz Ayana in the 5,000m.

The Ethiopian finished behind two Kenyans - Vivian Cheruiyot, who took gold in an Olympic record of 14min 26.17sec, and Hellen Obiri, who took silver in a personal best of 14:29.77, with Ayana claiming bronze in 14:33.59.  

It was no wonder Ayana looked underwhelmed as she received her bronze later in the evening.

Who would have thought the world champion, the woman who ran the second fastest time ever two months ago, would come here, run the 10,000m for only the second time in a massive world record, and then fail to win her main event?

Not Ayana, clearly. 

All credit to the 32-year-old Cheruiyot - who won world titles at this event in 2009 and 2011 and took silver behind the Ethiopian last week despite running a time that was within a second of the old world record  - and Obiri for hanging in there.

The Ethiopian's mid-race surge took her 40 metres clear at one point before they hunted her down and swooped past her on the penultimate lap.

"Almaz is such a great athlete, we thought she would win again,” said Cheruiyot.

“She got ahead but then I thought, 'She's not moving'.

“I was working and I went past her - I'm so happy.

"It was my fourth Olympic Games and I had not had gold.

"Almaz can go fast for 400m, then slow it down.

"Today I said, 'I am going to follow her. I am not going to lose her'."

The women’s pole vaulters who got the evening underway were only competing for silver – that is, according to Russia’s absent world record holder Yelena Isinbayeva, who announced her retirement today. 

Strange timing that…

However, in her absence the rest of the world’s pole vaulters gamely made the best of things and went ahead with their competition.

Defending champion Jenn Suhr of the US was reportedly in a bad way with food poisoning before the qualification round, but she had made it through. 

How fit was she? 

Perhaps not very, as she went out after three failures at 4.70 metres.

The competition came down to a final vault by Suhr’s team-mate Sandi Morris. 

If she was able to clear 5.90 with her third attempt she was Olympic champion. 

If not, gold went to Greece’s European champion Ekaterini Stefanidi who, like Morris, had cleared 4.85m but had a better overall record.

Morris failed, Stefanidi, who had already failed her last attempt and could only look on, animated her Greek flag with vigour.

Bronze went to New Zealand’s Eliza McCartney, who cleared a national record of 4.80m.

In the men’s hammer, a fifth round effort of 78.68m from Dilsho Nazarov earned meant - among other things - that Tajikistan became the seventh nation to win a first gold at Rio 2016.

Nazarov’s late effort took him past Ivan Tsikhan of Belarus, who managed 77.79m, with bronze going to Poland’s Wojciech Nowicki, who threw 77.73m.

Earlier in the day Australia’s Jared Tallent, who inherited the London 2012 men’s 50 kilometres walk title this year when Russia’s Sergey Kirdyapkin was disqualified for doping, appeared on the brink of retaining his title but he was overtaken a couple of kilometres from the finish by Slovakia’s world champion Matej Toth, who finished in 3 hours 40min 58sec, with Tallent taking silver in 3:41:16.

Bronze went to Japan’s Hirooki Arai in 3:41.24.

The women’s 20km walk saw China’s world champion Liu Hong move clear of Maria Gonzalez in the final 40 metres to claim the gold medal in 1:28:35, with the Mexican claiming silver in 1:28:37 ahead of Liu’s team-mate Xiuzhi Lu, who clocked 1:28:42.