Cheptegei is very, very (insert extra ‘veries’ as per personal preference) good. Three times a world champion at 10,000 metres, an Olympic champion at 5000 metres and as of 2 August, 2024, Olympic champion at 10,000 metres after the deepest 10,000 ever run at championships or any other level.
It was supposed to be the day when Shelly Ann Fraser-Pryce, the engaging Jamaican who has been the queen of women’s sprinting for most of this century was displaced by America’s Sha’Carri Richardson in the 100 metres.
Noah Lyles didn’t win his heat of the Olympic 100 metres. He didn’t win his semi-final either. He never led the 100 metres final until the moment his chest touched the line. But he is the Paris 2024 men’s 100 metres Olympic champion. And with victory we can acclaim him the world’s fastest man (until the next global championship).
Mondo Duplantis had the first word on day five of the Olympic athletics program. The pole vault final kicked off the evening program at 7 pm local time.
The Paris 2024 men’s Olympic 1500 metres was preceded by a bucketful of talk, some of it maybe contrived, but all of it setting the scene for an epic showdown between defending champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen and the man who beat him for last year’s world championship, Josh Kerr.
Indeed, the medals came from start to finish on Wednesday, 8 August in Paris. Bronze for Rhydian Cowley and Jemima Montag in the mixed relay marathon road walk in the morning, bronze for Matt Denny in the discus and then Kennedy’s gold in the dying moments of the day’s program at the Stade de France.
Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone has done it again. For a third time she completed a US Trials-global championships world record double in the 400 metres hurdles in the Stade de France on Thursday night (8 August).
On the last night in the Olympic stadium, everything’s a highlight. Every event is a final, that’s more than half of it. But each event is further tinged in the sentimental hue that this is closing night.
The 10,000 meters might be attenuated drama by its very nature, but 25 laps leading to a margin of victory of just one-tenth of a second? If that doesn’t raise the hairs on the back of your neck, check your vital signs.
It took until the very last event on the program for the athlete of Paris 2024 to emerge. And it took until the very last metres of the 42 thousand, 195 metres (plus a metre per kilometre to ensure there is no under-distance measurement) before it became clear Sifan Hassan was going to win the women’s marathon.
