It was so shocking, the ending of the Olympic 1500 meters, that Cole Hocker couldn’t quite remember how it had happened. Reporters questioned him on his final move down the homestretch, when he held the rail and tried to go inside of Jakob Ingebrigtsen of Norway. Ingebrigtsen initially shut him down.
But the part where Hocker tried again—and this time he did manage to get to the inside of Ingebrigtsen. Did he ever think of going outside instead?
That’s where Hocker drew a blank.
“Did the rail open up?” he asked reporters assembled around him after the race.
Yes, they assured him. He won with his kick on the inside.
No doubt, Hocker will watch the race over and over, the one that gave him the victory in an Olympic record time of 3:27.65, and maybe then it will all make sense to him. But in the immediate aftermath of the race, even with a gold medal hanging around his neck as proof, it all seemed like a blur.
How to Cross-Train Your Way Into a Goal Race predicted. Josh Kerr of Great Britain took the silver in 3:27.79, and Yared Nuguse of the United States was third in 3:27.80, just 0.01 seconds behind Kerr.
Ingebrigtsen, the prerace favorite by virtue of the Olympic gold medal he won in the event in 2021 in Tokyo—and the 3:26.73 he ran in Monaco three weeks ago—left empty-handed. He begins the first round of the 5,000 meters, which many consider to be his better event, on August 7.
Americans in Paris
Dakotah Lindwurm Is Top American at Olympics drama between the two favorites, Ingebrigtsen and Kerr, the 2023 world champion. Those two have had an entertaining war of words dating back to last summer.
Meanwhile, the Americans were quietly training, racing, and getting better all the time. That includes Hobbs Kessler, Results: 2024 Olympic Track and Field.
Hocker took down his PR by nearly 3 seconds. Kessler PRed by more than 2 seconds, and Nuguse trimmed 1.23 seconds from his best a year ago. And the race marked a turning point for American male distance runners.
It’s been slim pickings for the U.S men in the distance races. Since 2019, the only American male distance runner to medal at the Olympics or the World Championships was Paul Chelimo, who won silver in the 5,000 in Tokyo. Yes, there have been two fifth-place finishes. But mostly Americans weren’t in the picture.
That’s all changed in the span of five days in Paris. First it was Grant Fisher, on August 2, winning bronze in the 10,000 meters. And now two additional medals, Hocker and Nuguse, with Kessler hot on their heels and the 800 still to run.
Kicking Off a Hot Pace
Fisher is his own story, but Hocker and Nuguse have always had fierce kicks. Now they have the strength to use those kicks at the end of fast races. And the Olympic final was the perfect race to test that out.
Ingebrigtsen took the race out in 54.9 seconds for 400 meters—ahead of world record pace. He later said he went out 2 seconds too fast.
“I think everyone was ready for a fast race in this era of the 1500,” Hocker said, “but the first 400 was still jarring, to say the least. And I was like, ‘Oh, we’re gonna have to run today.’ Like, there’s no messing around.” The split at 800 meters was 1:51.1.
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“It makes things less crowded so I don’t have to fight anyone,” he said. “And it also just makes things more to my strengths of being able to kick off a very fast pace. So I think that was kind of ideal.”
Hocker forced himself to stay with it and not let too much of a gap form. Last summer, at the World Championships in Budapest, he was seventh, and he remembered how he felt after that race.
“I was soft and I didn’t go with it,” Hocker said. “And I told myself, ‘Just don’t be soft—you got to go with it. You’re going to regret this for the rest of your life if you don’t go with it.’”
With 600 meters to go in Paris, Ingebrigtsen had a little bit of daylight between himself and his pursuers. But he was starting to pay the price.
At the bell, Timothy Cheruyiot of Kenya was tucked right behind Ingebrigtsen. But he couldn’t keep the pace and eventually faded back to 11th.
Hocker tried launching his kick just before 200 meters to go, the place where he took control of the Olympic Trials.
Nuguse took heart at his compatriot’s move. “I feel good,” he thought to himself. “I know he feels good. Like, we can do something crazy huge here.”
Then the mayhem of the last 100 meters. As Hocker, Kerr, and Ingebrigtsen battled, Nuguse moved up from fourth. Had the race been 1501 meters, he would have had silver. Only 0.15 seconds separated the top three.
On the medal stand, while the “Star-Spangled Banner” played, Hocker looked dazed. Nuguse appeared to cry, although when asked about it, he laughed and tried, unsuccessfully, to pass it off as sweat.
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“I think for American distance running, after seeing Grant get bronze, too, I think like we’re just like, we know how deep the 1500 is right now,” Nuguse said. “But we knew we were very, very capable and we really believed in ourselves and so to come away with it is so crazy. And to come away with it with Cole is even better. That finish was peak, peak fun.”
Olympian Molly Seidel Is Taking the Slow Road Back Bryce Hoppel and Kessler again in the 800, Fisher and Abdihamid Nur in the 5,000, and Kenneth Rooks in the steeplechase final. The rest of the world? They’re taking the Americans seriously now.
Dakotah Lindwurm Is Top American at Olympics 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 Advertisement - Continue Reading Below, Run Your Butt Off! and Walk Your Butt Off!
