In a tactical men’s 1500-meter final, Matthew Centrowitz led for most of the race and held off the best milers in the world to win in 3:50.00. His is the first U.S. gold since Mel Sheppard won the event in the 1908 Olympics.
Defending champion Taoufik Makhloufi of Algeria ran 3:50.11 to finish second, matching the silver he won in the 800-meter final on Monday. Nick Willis Other Hearst Subscriptions.
Centrowitz said he had considered several different possibilities for the race, but his strategy played out perfectly.
“Once I was in the lead for so long, I was kind of like, all right, now we’re getting to the later stages of the race where I can’t give this lead up,” he said. “I was thinking someone was going to come by me on the backstretch. No one did. I was happy to have [the lead] going into the last curve.
“And then the last homestretch was just a long, long-ass hundred. I was like, Here comes someone. Someone’s gotta come. My legs felt great until I think about the last 20 when I kind of felt like I was buckling a little bit. I was like, Oh s---. C’mon, man, you’re right there.”
In an interview with NBC after the race, Centrowitz viewed on a screen the exuberant reaction of his family as he came down the stretch.
“He looks like a kid!” Centrowitz said of his dad, who was a two-time Olympian in 1976 and 1980. “And look at my sister. Good Lord. Ah, man.”
Centrowitz said his father told him, “Are you kidding me? Are you effing kidding me?”
The pace was extraordinarily slow for more than half of the 3.75-lap race. The first 400 meters passed in 66.83, or just faster than 4:30 per mile pace. The second lap was even slower, for an 800-meter split of 2:16.59.
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The other American in the field, Ben Blankenship, finished eighth in 3:51.09. The 2008 gold medalist, Asbel Kiprop of Kenya, was often positioned poorly in such a tactical race and placed sixth in 3:50.87. The first six men finished within one second of each other.
Centrowitz, fourth in the London Games four years ago, has been known as a supreme tactician throughout his career. Like Bernard Lagat, he seems to always be in the right place at the right time. In such a slow race, that meant staying up front to avoid the pushing and stumbling going on behind him and to be able to react to any attempts to move around him.
And there he stayed, despite Makhloufi’s and others’ best efforts to get past him.
“I’ve done workouts where I’ve thought I could close in a tactical race somewhere close 49.5,” Centrowitz said. He covered the final lap in 50.62 seconds.
His winning time is the slowest since Luigi Beccali of Italy won the 1932 title in 3:51.2. But they give gold medals for place, not time, and on Saturday night Centrowitz added the best possible item to a résumé that also includes this year’s world indoor title and world championship silver and bronze medals.
Pro Runners Ask: Is My Agent Worth the Fee is a writer and editor living in Eugene, Oregon, and her stories about the sport, its trends, and fascinating individuals have appeared in Runner’s World since 2005. She is the author of two popular fitness books, Run Your Butt Off! and Walk Your Butt Off!
