PARIS | AGENCIES – Uganda’s Joshua Cheptegei withstood Ethiopian team tactics to claim gold in the men’s Olympic 10,000m at the Stade de France on Friday.
The three-time world champion and world record holder, silver medallist at the Tokyo Games, timed an Olympic record of 26min 43.14sec for victory.
That beat the previous best of 27:07.17 set by Ethiopian great Kenenisa Bekele at the 2008 Beijing Games.
Ethiopia’s Berihu Aregawi edged fast-finishing American Grant Fisher by two-hundredths of a second to take silver in 26:43.44.
Cheptegei admitted to having been inspired by Bekele’s Beijing triumph.
“It’s the dream of young people to achieve what they want to achieve in life,” said Cheptegei.
“Barely 16 years ago when I was watching the great Kenenisa Bekele win in Beijing, it was something that grew in my heart.
“I said, one day, one time, I want to be Olympic champion.”
Cheptegei, 27, added: “I’ve wanted this for a long time. When I took silver in Tokyo, I was disappointed. I wanted just to win the 10,000m.
“It took a lot of courage. It’s really amazing, this one was still missing. Three times world champion, now I can add the Olympic title to this.”
The first surge came after just two laps of the 25-lap race, defending champion Selemon Barega and Ethiopian teammate Yomif Kejelcha accelerating away to split the field.
The 25-strong field dissipated but all runners held in there.
Aregawi had his turn after Kejelcha as the Ethiopian trio dictated the pace in front of a noisy near-capacity 69,000 crowd at the Stade de France in perfect warm conditions.
