Look, I love the 10,000m. It began when I first ran one at West Valley College in July 1976 with Danny Grimes and Bob Lucas. Homer Latimer won that on in 32:11. Homer was the coach at Leigh High School and an iconic runner in the area. I fell in love with the 25-lapper. Watching the greats, like Frank Shorter and Lasse Viren, run, and the modern greats, like Haile Gebreselassie and Kenenisa Bekele. In fact, the most brutal 10,000m I have ever witnessed was in the Stade de France in August 2003. Sorry, it took me a few days to write this up.
This race, the Men’s 10,000m in the Paris Olympics, was historic for so many reasons, the depth, for instance, and the killer pace from the beginning, and the incredible tactics. It was, as I tell my viewers on #CoffeeWithLarry most days, “splendiferous.”
The men’s 10,000m in Paris was among the finest 25 lappers in the event’s history. the 10,000m was first held in the
#1912Stockholm Olympics. The gods of the 10,000m, living and in another frequency (Nurmi, Ritola, Viren, Bedford, Shorter, Stewart, Farah, Mills, Zatopek, Mimoun), would have loved this race. So much drama in just 25 laps!
The Ethiopian team of Yomif Kejelcha, Selemon Barega, and Berihu Aregawi, three of the deadliest distance runners in our sport, used team tactics to break the race up. Credit should be given to Yomif Kejelcha, a fine runner from the mile (3:48 indoors) to the 5,000m (12:38.95) and 10,000m (26:31.01). Kejelcha orchestrated the hard pace, pushing Barega from behind and speaking to him about the pace. For Kejelcha, the only way to break the others (others meaning Joshua Cheptegai, Grant Fisher, Mo Ahmed) was a hard pace that had to be set. And set it was!
The Ethiopians took the 5,000m fast, hitting halfway in 13:23. Staying close to them were Grant Fisher, Mo Ahmed, and Joshua Cheptegai.
The conditions were hot and humid, and the pace was traumatic for some. Yohan Shrubb, FRA, collapsed nearly halfway from the pace.
The pace slowed, and the race came down to a killing finish. Joshua Cheptegai of Uganda took the lead with 500 meters to go and never looked back. Grant Fisher moved past Mo Ahmed of Canada and the Ethiopians, and with fifty meters to go, Berihu Aregawi of Ethiopia sprinted by Grant Fisher of the US for the silver, and Grant Fisher took the bronze, becoming only the fourth American (Louis Tewanima, 1912,…
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