Britain’s Josh Kerr lost out on gold in the final yards of the men’s 1500m final after an Olympic-record run by Cole Hocker of the USA delivered the shock of the Games – as the Team GB men’s cycling team also took silver in the velodrome.
It had been billed as a grudge match, a “race for the ages” as Sebastian Coe described it, in which Kerr, the world champion from Edinburgh, and Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen, the Olympic title holder, would compete for the top podium and bragging rights in Paris.
Ingebrigtsen set an electrifying pace from the outset in the Stade de France and as Kerr, wearing his signature Oakley sunglasses, put on the afterburners halfway through the final lap, the scene appeared set for the two rivals to go toe-to-toe for glory.
Kerr looked to have the better of the Norwegian with whom he had exchanged barbs for months but with only 30m to go Hocker, a silver medallist in the world indoor championships, spoiled the party, edging it in the final yards as the British middle distance runner, clocking the best time of his career, tired.
Hocker took the race in an Olympic record of 3.27.65, after pulling from fifth to first over the last 300m to beat his personal best by more than 3sec, and Kerr by 0.14sec.
Yared Nuguse of the USA, who had come from 10th position, almost edged silver off Kerr at the finishing line, but took bronze with Ingebrigtsen left in fourth.
It was not “one of the most vicious” 1500m of modern times, as Kerr had said by way of a preview, but it was exhilarating nonetheless and proved to be the first US win in the metric mile since Matt Centrowitz took gold in 2016.
Kerr, who won bronze in Tokyo, said: “I can’t walk away from the championship disappointed. Obviously I said what my goals were, it was pretty obvious. But I’ve put a performance out there today that I was extremely proud of.
“I focused on my controllables, I ran the fastest and best 1500m I’ve ever done in my life and so when you start worrying about what everyone else does from the results then you’ll never be satisfied. It’s obviously not the colour of medal I want but it’s working towards the right colour – from bronze to silver.”
Ingebrigtsen, the fastest man in the field – and fourth-fastest of all time – admitted he had gone too quickly and too early. “My plan was to win,” he said. “It didn’t go according to plan. But I felt very strong the first couple of laps.
“I had difficulty telling the pace because it was quite fast. But it was difficult to slow down and reduce myself a little bit. I saw I was starting to get a little bit of a gap and I kept on pushing but it was just 100m too long today.
“The guys behind me finishing in front of me did a great race. It’s not always easy to spend your energy wisely but I felt strong and not the result I wanted. A 1500m the pace is so fast the whole race, especially with me opening so strong. You can’t really tell 100% when you’re hitting the wall before you hit it – it just a little bit too early today.”
Shortly after in the Stade de France, the British sprinter Dina Asher-Smith was left disappointed after losing out on a bronze medal following a photo-finish with the USA’s Brittany Brown in the women’s 200m final. Gabrielle Thomas, also of the USA, took gold and Saint Lucia’s Julien Alfred, winner of the women’s 100m final, came in second.
The silver medal picked up in the velodrome by Team GB had been less surprising than that earned by Kerr, with the men’s sprint team facing the strongest of favourites in the Netherlands, the reigning world and Olympic champions.
The Dutch put down a clear marker by breaking the world record not once but twice on the way to victory, leaving Jack Carlin, Ed Lowe and Hamish Turnbull almost a second behind their final time. Germany took bronze.
Carlin said: “I think we’ve executed three really solid races there and can be proud of that as a team. We knew that we would be up against it coming into it but we stuck to our process and stuck to what we wanted from each race.”
In the skateboarding final on the Place de Concorde, Britain’s Sky Brown secured a bronze, a result she described as “sick”.
Brown had been struggling with the left shoulder she had dislocated after a fall during a preliminary round but a sensational final run saw her add another medal to the bronze earned in Tokyo at the age of 13.
The 14-year-old Arisa Trew from Australia took gold while Japan’s Kokona Hiraki, 15, repeated her silver medal-winning performance of three years ago.
Brown said: “I’m so happy just to be back on the Olympic stage, having the crowd cheer me on, cheering all of us on and really hyping us up was really cool. Getting back on the podium, I mean getting on the podium at all is just sick.
“This journey since Tokyo has been crazy but watching the levels change at Paris and knowing we all had to push boundaries together has been really cool.”
Earlier there had been a reminder of the cruelty of top-level sport in the Stade de France when the Olympic adventure of the British 400m hurdles champion Lina Nielsen ended when she tripped over the last obstacle in the semi-final. Nielsen had made public a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis two years ago.
In the Aquatics Centre in Saint-Denis, the British diver Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix also spoke of just being happy just to wake up at all on the morning of her diving final after a period of poor mental health, as she missed out on a second Olympic medal.
The 19-year-old diver, who won a bronze last week in the synchronised 10m platform with Lois Toulson, came sixth in the individual final. Spendolini-Sirieix said her tears on leaving the pool had not been in response to her performance.
“So I woke up this morning, and like, the first thought that I had was: ‘I’m happy that I woke up,’ and that’s just how it’s been for a long time,” she said. “I’m just grateful to be alive and to have this experience and to be here with my family.”
Lewis Richardson took Team GB’s first and only boxing medal of the Olympics with men’s light-middleweight bronze. The 27-year-old was beaten by the Mexican Marco Verde in a split decision in his men’s 71kg semi-final.
