Moscow: Usain Bolt underlined his amazing sprinting prowess on Saturday by powering to a third successive world 200m title at the World Athletics Championships for his seventh world gold medal.

The 26-year-old Jamaican destroyed the field to finish in 19.66 seconds, teammate Warren Weir claiming silver in a personal best of 19.79sec and American Curtis Mitchell taking bronze in 20.04.

It was Bolt’s seventh world gold medal after winning the 100 and 200m at the Berlin worlds in 2009, the 200m in Daegu in 2011, the 100m in Moscow on Sunday and golds as part of the winning Jamaican 4x100m relay squads in both 2009 and 2011.

He also has two silvers (200m, 4x100m relay) from the 2007 worlds in Osaka.

His burgeoning medal haul also includes unprecedented treble golds from both the 2008 and 2012 Olympics.

Bolt now has the opportunity to draw level with the present mark of eight world gold medals won by retired American duo Carl Lewis and Michael Johnson when he races the 4x100m relay on Sunday.

Bolt, who had been nursing a sore foot after regaining his 100m title on Sunday, had the slowest reaction time of the eight-man field, but exploded into the corner and was up on Briton Adam Gemili on his outside in lane five within 10 paces.

As he rounded the bend, Bolt had a clear lead on the rest of the field, Weir in lane eight coming through late on.

Earlier, American Brianna Rollins won the women’s 100 metres hurdles title on the eve of her birthday.

Rollins, who turns 22 on Sunday, timed 12.44 seconds to take the gold, while defending champion Sally Pearson of Australia was second in 12.50sec and Tiffany Porter of Britain won the bronze timing 12.55sec.

Porter, who was born in America but three years ago was allowed to compete for Britain as she qualified through her English-born mother, led from the blocks with Olympic champion Pearson on her shoulder.

Czech Republic’s Vitezslav Vesely coached by three-time champion Jan Zelezny won the men’s javelin world title and Russia’s Svetlana Shkolina won a shock gold in the women’s high jump.

Russia won the women’s 4x400 metres relay world title in a time of 3min 20.19sec while three-time defending champions the United States took silver (3:20.41) and Great Britain the bronze (3:22.61).

In the first final of the day, Ugandan Stephen Kiprotich added the world marathon gold to his Olympic title, again shutting out strong Ethiopian and Kenyan squads.

After that, Ethiopian Meseret Defar reclaimed the women’s 5,000m title.