Joshua Cheptegei of Uganda took the lead with a little more than a lap left in a masterpiece of a 10,000-meter final Friday to win in an Olympic-record 26 minutes, 43.14 seconds in front of a roaring crowd on an electric opening night for track at the Stade de France.
The world-record holder raced in the middle of a strung-out pack for most of the 25 laps on the calm, cool evening outside of Paris. Then he took off around the curve and held the lead over the final 500 meters against a crowd of Ethiopians who set a blistering pace all night.
Ethiopian Berihu Aregawi beat American Grant Fisher in a sprint to the line for silver. Fisher’s bronze medal marked the first for the U.S. in the longest race on the Olympic track since Galen Rupp took silver in 2012.
This was Cheptegei’s season opener on the track this season — his only race at this distance was a 26:53 run in a cross-country road race earlier this season.
He looked in peak form, turning a race being controlled by Aregawi and his Ethiopian teammates, who strung out the pack early and took turns in the lead, into a celebration for Uganda, which captured its first gold in the 112-year history of this race at the Olympics.
The win earned Cheptegei $50,000 — a new prize for Olympic track this year — and a chance to ring the bell at the end of the stadium that is reserved only for newly crowned Olympic champions.
Cheptegei adds this to the silver medal he won in Tokyo and the world titles he took in 2019, 2022 and 2023.
“Now, my collection is complete,” he said. “I was the world champion. Now, I win the Olympic title. I’m so excited.”
5K down and 57 left to go for Sifan Hassan
Iron woman Sifan Hassan completed the first leg of what is shaping up as a long Olympics. She finished second in the first round of the 5,000 meters.
Hassan also plans to run in the 10,000 meters and the marathon. At the Tokyo Olympics three years ago, the Ethiopian-born Dutch runner became the first person to win medals in the 1,500, 5,000 and 10,000 meters.
She realizes that going 3 for 3 might not be in the cards this time, but she plans on trying.
“When I’m at the start line, I always ask myself: ‘Why? Why? What is wrong with you?’ But when I go home, I want to do it. It’s a lot about curiosity,” Hassan said after finishing her heat in 14 minutes, 57.65 seconds.
Americans set world record in one of track’s newest events
The U.S. mixed 4×400 meter relay team set a world record in an event that is only 5 years old.
The team of Vernon Norwood, Shamier Little, Bryce Deadmon and Kaylyn Brown finished the four laps in 3 minutes, 7.41 seconds to break a mark set at world championships last year.
All the record did was place the Americans in Saturday’s final, where the record will be in jeopardy again.
Crouser, Kovacs advance to shot put final
Americans Ryan Crouser and Joe Kovacs and Tom Walsh of New Zealand all advanced to the shot put final, giving them a chance at finishing 1-2-3 — in that exact order — for the third straight Games.
Crouser, who has been dealing with an elbow injury this year, needed only one throw to advance with a mark of 21.49 meters.
Also in the mix is Leonardo Fabbri of Italy, whose throw of 21.76 was the evening’s biggest.
Jasmine Moore goes one and done in triple jump
Jasmine Moore, the first American woman to qualify for the Olympics in both the triple jump and the long jump, kept her work to a minimum. She needed just one jump — a season-best 14.43 meters — to lock down her spot in the triple jump finals.
Leyanis Perez Hernandez of Cuba had the night’s best jump (14.68) in an event that has been thrown wide open because of an Achilles tendon injury that ended the season for defending champion and world-record holder Yulimar Rojas of Venezuela this spring.