Cole Hocker was a shock gold medallist for the United States in the men’s Olympic 1,500 metres where top favourite Jakob Ingebrigtsen of Norway failed to medal, while the second US gold on Tuesday night from 200m runner Gabby Thomas was no surprise.
Hocker ran to gold in an Olympic record 3 minutes 27.65 seconds to beat former world champion Josh Kerr of Britain and American team-mate Yared Nuguse as Tokyo 2020 winner Ingebrigsen faded from first to fourth.
Season leader Thomas then lived up to her top billing as she denied St Lucia’s 100m winner Julien Alfred a sprint double with victory in 21.83 seconds. The US took bronze here as well from Brittany Brown.
Elsewhere, Canada completed a hammer throw double when Camryn Rogers won the women’s event with 76.97m after Ethan Katzberg topped the men’s competition. Poland’s Anita Wlodarczyk was unable to get a fourth straight gold as she had to settle for fourth.
World champion Miltiadis Tentoglou got back to back men’s long jump gold for Greece with 8.48m. The
women’s 3,000m steeplechase also saw the world champion on top, in the form of Bahrain’s Winfred Yavi, who denied Tokyo winner Peruth Chemutai in an Olympic record 8:52.76 minutes.
Ingebrigtsen beaten again
Ingebrigtsen changed his tactics after the heats and semi-finals as he set a past pace from the front until coming into the home stretch.
Kerr, who beat Ingebrigtsen for the 2022 world title, moved ahead on the outside, but Hocker then came storming down on the inside for an improbable gold.
Kerr got silver .14 behind in a British record 3:27.79, and Nuguse followed another one-hundredths back after also surging past Ingebrigtsen who missed the podium by almost half a second.
‘That’s an unbelievable feeling. My body just kind of did it for me. My mind was all there and I saw that finish line,’ Hocker said.
‘Winning gold was my goal this entire year. I knew I was a medal contender, and I knew that if I get it right, it would be a gold medal. I’ve been saying that.’
Hocker was also in the Tokyo final
ad won world indoor silver this year but he was happy that all the attention was on the Ingebrigtsen-Kerr rivalry.
‘I kind of told myself that I’m in this race too. If they let me fly under the radar, then so be it. I think that might’ve just been the best,’ he said.
Ingebrigtsen said that ‘I ruined it for myself by going way too hard.
‘I felt extremely good, and that’s why I pushed the pace a little too hard. It’s not as fun if I’m not able to get the results I want. But the others did a great race. This was a risk I was going to take.’
Ingebrigtsen will now shake off a third straight big event defeat and focus on the 5,000m where he won back-to-back world titles.
Gold at last for Thomas
Thomas, who didn’t run the 100m, was ever serious troubled as she surged away on the home straight for 200m gold at last, after bronze at Tokyo 2020 and silver at last year’s world.
Alfred took silver .25 back, and Brown denied former world champion Dina Asher-Smith the bronze.
Thomas, who has a neurobiology bachelor
‘s degree, is the first Havard graduate to win an Olympic athletics gold medal.
‘I’m really in disbelief because having an Olympic gold medal is something in my wildest dreams. But at the same time I know how hard I’ve fought for it,’ she said.
‘This has been six years in the making, head down, working hard, going to really hard meets, pushing yourself, and now it’s here and I’ve done it. This is the happiest moment of my life.’
Preliminary action
American Olympic champion Sydney McClaughlin-Levrone and Dutch world champion Femke Bol moved into the 400 metres hurdles final which has been named the most anticipated athletics duel at the Paris Games.
McLaughlin-Levrone lowered her own world record to 50.65 seconds in June, two weeks before Bol became the second woman to dip below 51 seconds with 50.95. Bol already has a Paris gold from the mixed 4x400m relay.
London 2012 gold medallist Kirani James of Grenada led the men’s 400m semi-finals, while in the long jump Tokyo winner Malaika Mihambo needed a fina
l attempt after two fouls to make the final which world champion Ivana Spanovic of Serbia missed.
Wednesday’s finals at the Stade de France are the men’s 400m, steeplechase and discus, as well as the women’s pole vault. Also on the agenda in the morning is the debut of the race walk mixed relay.
Source: Ghana News Agency