History-making Faith Kipyegon became the first woman to win three consecutive Olympic 1,500m titles in Paris on Saturday as the United States bagged three more golds to confirm their track and field dominance.
The final Olympic session at a packed 69,000-capacity Stade de France offered up another startling night of dramatic action.
There was redemption for Jakob Ingebrigtsen in the 5,000m, New Zealander Hamish Kerr won a jump-off for high jump gold and Japan’s Haruka Kitaguchi won the women’s javelin.
Kipyegon made history in spectacular style, the 30-year-old 2016 and 2020 champion producing a tactical masterpiece to take gold in a new Olympic record of 3min 51.29sec.
It was another remarkable performance by Kipyegon, the reigning world champion and world record holder who can now arguably lay claim to being the greatest women’s middle-distance runner in history.
“It has been a week with a lot of emotions,” said Kipyegon in reference to winning the 5,000m silver earlier in the week.
“Tonight it is happiness and I am proud to win my third consecutive Olympic gold medal in the 1500m.”
Kipyegon’s teammate Emmanuel Wanyonyi made it two Kenyan golds on the night after he held off world champion Marco Arop of Canada for victory in the men’s 800m.
Wanyonyi clocked a personal best of 1:41.19 for victory in a sensational two laps that saw four men in the same race break the 1:42 mark for the first time.
“I came to Paris, I told myself this race is not easy because it’s the Olympics, so I need to run my personal best to win this,” he said.
Algerian Djamel Sedjati took bronze, news then breaking that French anti-doping officers had carried out searches at the Paris Olympic Village on Thursday in a probe focusing on his coach Amar Benida.
“Nothing (important) happened. These are things that athletes can face,” Sedjati said.
Two-time defending world champion Ingebrigtsen made up for his fourth place in the 1500m with a dominant victory in the 5,000m.
The Norwegian timed 13min 13.66sec for gold, Kenya’s Ronald Kwemoi taking silver in 13:15.04.
American Grant Fisher will return home with two bronzes after rounding out the podium (13:15.13) as he had also done in the 10,000m race.
“With the level being so high, people are running so fast this year, I knew I had to be at my very best to be able to fight for medals,” said Ingebrigtsen.
Three more US golds
Fisher’s bronze added another to the incredible US medal haul, boosted by three more golds on Saturday.
Masai Russell clocked 12.33sec for victory in the 100m hurdles, edging out by one-hundredth Cyrena Samba-Mayela, who clinched the host nation’s first athletics medal of the Games.
Individual 200m champion Gabby Thomas and 400m hurdles winners Rai Benjamin and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone then helped steer the women and men’s 4x400m relay teams to victory.
Benjamin guided the US men’s quartet also featuring Christopher Bailey, Vernon Norwood and Bryce Deadmon to an Olympic record of 2min 54.43sec.
Thomas and McLaughlin-Levrone were instrumental, along with Shamier Little and Alexis Holmes, as the women won in 3:15.27.
They narrowly missed out on breaking one of the oldest world records in athletics—the 3:15.17 set by the former Soviet Union in 1988.
With just the women’s marathon to be raced on Sunday, the US now sit atop the athletics medals table with 14 golds, 11 silvers and nine bronzes.
Kenya are second with four golds, two silvers and four bronzes.
There was more drama in the men’s high jump – and not a little deja vu.
One of the most iconic images of the Tokyo Games was that of Qatar’s Mutaz Essa Barshim and Italian Gianmarco Tamberi sharing gold.
Kerr and American Shelby McEwen were locked on 2.36m at the end of regulation competition.
But neither wanted to share and the pair went into a jump-off, the New Zealander coming out on top to rapturous applause from the crowd.
“High jump’s always a roller coaster, there’s always guys who will miss and then clear, and then miss,” said Kerr.
