ATHENS, Aug. 28 (Xinhuanet) -- Britain's Mark Lewis-Francis beat America's Maurice Greene on the last leg to win the gold medal in the men's 4x100m relay at the Olympic Games here on Saturday.

    The team of Jason Gardener, Darren Campbell, Marlon Devonish and Lewis-Francis were flawless with their baton passes and narrowly beat the United States.

    Britain clocked 38.07 seconds with America one hundreth of a second behind. Nigeria got the bronze in 38.23 seconds.

    The US bid stumbled with a poor change between Justin Gatlin and Coby Miller.

    Gatlin, the 100m champion, took over from 200m gold medallist Shawn Crawford but fumbled his handover to Miller leaving Britain ahead with one runner left.

    Lewis-Francis, who failed to reach the final in the individual 100m, put in a sensational effort to stay ahead of the fast-finishing Greene, the 100m bronze medallist and former Olympic champion.

    It is the first British Olympic relay gold medal since 1912.

    Britain took silver behind the United States in the 2003 world championships but were later stripped of their medals when Dwain Chambers failed a drugs test.

    America have won the relay 15 of the 20 times it has been run but have failed to win in three of the last five Olympics. Enditem