BEIJING — It was theirs to lose, and they did.

Sanya Richards led in the stretch but was outrun to the finish in the 400 meters and Lolo Jones clipped the second-to-last barrier in the 100-meter hurdles Tuesday night, as two of America’s top runners let Olympic gold medals slip away.

Richards still won bronze, but a woman who has dominated the distance looked crushed during the medals ceremony. Afterward, she was sitting in a hallway beneath the Bird’s Nest stands, crying into her cell phone. She told reporters her hamstring tightened up on the last turn of the one-lap race.

Jones had taken the lead and seemed to be pulling away when she hooked her right foot on the ninth hurdle and broke her stride, falling from first to seventh. The late blunder opened the door for teammate Dawn Harper to win the U.S. track team’s third gold medal of the games.

While Harper did a victory lap carrying the American flag, Jones kneeled on the track, her face to the ground in stunned disbelief.

Richards painted a similar picture a few minutes earlier. She was ahead, looking to write a successful closing chapter to a year of illness and setbacks, but settled for bronze after being beaten badly over the last 80 meters by Britain’s Christine Ohuruogu and Jamaica’s Shericka Williams.

Ohuruogu, the 2007 world champion, was recently cleared to compete in Beijing after winning an appeal against a lifetime Olympic ban for missing three doping tests in 2005 and 2006.

She won in 49.62 seconds and fashioned a comeback story of sorts.

Harper grew up in East St. Louis, was a member of the UCLA track team and is coached by Bob Kersee, who added another Olympic champion to his long list. She grabbed the last spot on the American team at the Olympic trials and, though the American hurdles team is strong, wasn’t considered among the medal favorites.

And Harper’s wasn’t one of the big stories being told back home in the States.

Those belonged to Richards and Jones.

Jones was the kid who lived in a church basement, worked at a hardware store and as a waitress to pay bills as an adult and was looking to cap her classic American comeback story with a gold in Beijing.

The story was going to form until she struck the ninth hurdle, then stumbled toward the finish. Her eyes opened wide when she hit that hurdle — yes, that really happened — and then, after she crossed the finish line, she thrust her fists to her sides, fell to the track, removed her sunglasses and glared up at the scoreboard in disbelief.

Richards lost most of her 2007 season to Behcet’s syndrome, a rare and painful disorder that causes chronic inflammation of blood vessels throughout the body.

Earlier this month, at U.S. training camp in Dalian, China, she and coach Clyde Hart were talking about how the splotches on her legs — a final remnant of the disease — were finally fading and how she was feeling as close to 100 percent as she could, knowing the disease had not gone away.

Rashid Ramzi won the men’s 1,500 meters to give Bahrain its first-ever Olympic track and field gold medal.

Moroccan-born Ramzi, the 2005 world champion in the 800 and 1,500, won the final in 3 minutes, 32.94 seconds. Kipruto Kiprop of Kenya took silver in 3:33.11 and Nicholas Willis of New Zealand got the bronze in 3:34.16.

Reigning world champion Gerd Kanter of Estonia won the gold medal in the men’s discus throw.

Kanter hit the front with his fourth attempt at 68.82 meters (225 feet, 9 inches) in Tuesday’s final. Piotr Malachowski of Poland took the silver at 67.82 meters (222-6) and Virgilijus Alekna of Lithuania, the two-time world and Olympic champion, won the bronze at 67.79 (222-5).

Andrey Silnov of Russia won the men’s high jump by clearing 2.36 meters (7 feet, 8 3/4 inches) without a miss Tuesday.

Britain’s Germaine Mason picked up silver at 2.34 meters (7-8). Mason competed for Jamaica until 2006 and still holds the national record in the Caribbean nation. Former world indoors champion Yaroslav Rybakov got bronze for Russia at the same height. He lost to Mason on a countback.

Meanwhile, in qualifying rounds, Usain Bolt played to the cameras before his 200-meter semifinal, slowed down in the middle and still rallied to beat rivals who were running much harder. Then he promised to go all out in the final.

If he does — and he hasn’t really yet in these Olympics — there doesn’t seem to be any way he can be beaten.

Bolt won his semifinal in 20.09 seconds, keeping alive his chances for the first 100-200 Olympic double since Carl Lewis in 1984.

The Jamaican sprinter, who set the world record in the 100 at 9.69 seconds Saturday, beat defending 200 champion Shawn Crawford of the United States by 0.03 second. The noticeable difference, though, was that Bolt appeared to be loping to the line, while Crawford was busting across at full speed.

“I wouldn’t say jogging,” Bolt said. “I’m just trying to get through to the next round. I didn’t know if he was running. I just wanted to make sure I was in good position.”

American Wallace Spearmon used a late burst to finish third and will join a third American, Walter Dix, in the final Wednesday night.

In the 400-meter semifinals, American rivals Jeremy Wariner and LaShawn Merritt won their respective semifinals. Wariner, the defending Olympic champion, is 14-3 lifetime against Merritt, but Merritt has two of those wins in the last year, including at the U.S. Olympic trials.

In other qualifying heats, world record-holder Dayron Robles of Cuba and American David Oliver advanced easily in the 110-meter hurdles. Chinese star and defending Olympic champion Liu Xiang withdrew from the event before the first round with an injured foot.

There were no surprises in the second round of women’s 200 heats. Americans Allyson Felix, Muna Lee and Marshevet Hooker all made it through, as did the Jamaican trio of Veronica Campbell-Brown, Sherone Simpson and Kerron Stewart.

In the 100, the Jamaicans swept and the Americans finished 4-5-8. The two countries could again earn six of the eight spots in Thursday night’s 200 final.

“It fueled my fire,” Lee said of Jamaica’s dominance. “I’ll just think about that in the final.”

In women’s 5,000-meter semis, American Shalane Flanagan kept alive her hopes for two Olympic medals. That would be a first for an American in the short history of women’s distance running at the Olympics.

Flanagan overcame stomach troubles to win bronze in the 10,000 and said she’s still celebrating that success.

“It’s beautiful,” she said. “It’s kind of like I’d imagine if you have a newborn child. You’re fascinated with it. You’re like, ‘Wow, that really is mine? That’s mine?’”