A gold, green and black party deep in the heart of Russia

How can you win three gold medals in three events and still finish runner-up on the list of best performers at the Moscow world athletics championships?

Well, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, that's just how it goes when you live on Planet Bolt.

Fraser-Pryce blistered the blue Mondo track at Luzhniki Stadium on her way to winning the 100 and 200m events and anchoring Jamaica to a runaway 4x100 victory on the final day. It was a performance for the ages from the pocket rocket from Kingston, but it was still overshadowed by her Jamaican compatriot and the greatest sprinter to have ever laced them up.

So here's the countdown in the fast lane of Moscow's Fab 5:

5. Robert Heffernan (IRE)

Race walking appears to be an event specifically designed to let white people win at least one race at a major athletics event - and it's almost as painful to watch as it is to compete in. But that didn't detract from the seminal moment of the worlds when a plucky Irishman broke Russia's iron grip on walking and claimed the 50km title. Begorrah and begosh.

4. Yelena Isinbayeva (RUS)

Bolt and Fraser-Pryce dominated the track, but the field - all of Luzhniki Stadium, for that matter - belonged to Russia's pole vault darling.

The world record holder's form over the past few years had been patchy and she openly flaunted retirement plans, but all that was put on hold in Moscow as she soared to victory with a leap of 4.89m. She then took three impressive shots at her world record (5.06m).

3. Mo Farah (GBR)

He wants to race Bolt over a hybrid distance - maybe 600m - in a gimmicky event, but the Somalia-born Englishman is far better suited sticking with his main beat, and that's obliterating the African hegemony (read Kenya and Ethiopia) over 5,000 and 10,000 meters. Race Bolt, for sure, but turning distance running on its head should be far more rewarding.

2. Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce (JAM)

The new queen of the track was untouchable over 100, 200 and in the last leg of the 4x100 final. Nobody bursts from the blocks like the impish woman from the troubled Kingston suburb of Waterhouse. She barely stands 1.52 meters (or 5-feet) but is now the colossus of women's sprinting.

1. Usain Bolt (JAM)

By his otherworldly performance standards, the numbers were not great - 9.77 sec in the 100 and 19.66 in the 200 - but the world record holder from the northern Jamaican parish of Trelawny is not measured by stats now, just titles. You can argue till the cows come home, but he is the greatest sprinter this little blue orb has ever seen. Fourteen Olympic and worlds gold medals! Nuff said, and he only turned 27 today.

OK, roll on Beijing 2015.

Tym Glaser is a senior sport copy editor who can be contacted at the Duncans PO in Trelawny or tymglaser@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 08/21/2013 page22)