BEIJING -- The United States won the men's 1,600-meter relay Saturday at the Beijing Olympics and the heavy favorites set an Olympic record in the process.

The Americans won gold, silver and bronze in the men's individual 400 meters and each member of that sweep was on the 4x400 team. The remaining U.S. leg was run by Angelo Taylor, gold medalist in the men's 400-meter hurdles in Beijing.

The United States ran the race in 2 minutes, 55.39 seconds to break the mark of 2:55.74 set by another American squad at the 1992 Barcelona Games.

Men's 400m gold medalist LaShawn Merritt ran the opening leg and gave the United States a lead it would never relinquish. Taylor extended the advantage and David Neville, winner of bronze in the 400, held on to the pace.

Jeremy Wariner, winner of gold four years ago in Athens in the 400 and silver medalist this year, was then able to bring the record home with an excellent anchor run. Wariner also won a gold in the relay four years ago.

The Bahamas won the silver medal, finishing nearly four seconds behind the Americans with a time of 2:58.03. Russia crossed the finish line just .03 seconds later for bronze.

The United States has won this race at every Summer Games since boycotting the 1980 Moscow Olympics. However, the 2000 Sydney team had its gold medal stripped after Antonio Pettigrew confessed to doping. American sprinting legend Michael Johnson was among those who lost his medal from that race as was Taylor, who ran a leg in the preliminaries that year.