Usain Bolt comfortably advanced to the final of the 200-metres in Brazil as Justin Gatlin and Yohan Blake missed out on Thursday night's final.
The Jamaican won the second semi-final in a season's best of 19.78 seconds, with 100-metre bronze medallist Andre De Grasse finishing both 0.02 seconds behind.
American 400-metre specialist Lashaun Merritt and Panama's Alonso Edward won the other two semi-finalists.
In the Women's 100-metre hurdles, the Americans won a clean sweep of the medals as Brianna Rollins defeated Nia Ali and Kristi Castlin. The performance is all the more incredible because World Record holder Kendra Harrison missed out on qualifying for the team.
Ok now that's definetely our favourite photo of the day#Athletics #Rio2016 #Olympics pic.twitter.com/G9cxf23rov
— IAAF (@iaaforg) August 18, 2016
Jamaica's dominance of the sprint competitions continued as Elaine Thompson added the 200-metres title to her 100-metres crown. Thompson defeated Dutch sprinter Dafne Schippers to the gold as both women ran season's best times.
In basketball, America had their best performance of the tournament to comfortably beat Argentina in the quarter-finals. Kevin Durant top-scored with 27-points in the 105-78 win.
America will play Spain and Australia face Serbia in Friday's semi-finals.
