PARIS, Aug. 6 (Xinhua) — American Cole Hocker produced a barnstorming finish to clinch gold in the men’s 1,500m at the Paris Olympics on Tuesday.
Hocker passed defending champion Jakob Ingebrigsten of Norway and Britain’s Josh Kerr in the final stretch to win in an Olympic record time of 3 minutes, 27.65 seconds.
Kerr took silver in 3:27.79 while American Yared Nuguse also finished strongly to take bronze in 3:27.80.
“I am still searching for the words to describe that moment but every part of me knew this was the Olympic final, I felt the moment and magnitude of it, and it was incredible,” Hocker said. “It was, ‘Let’s get silver’, then ‘Let’s get gold’, and with 10 meters to go I felt like I knew I had gold.”
“I feel like I have lived that scenario a lot of times in real life, racing people and trying to kick people down and this time it just happened to be the Olympic final. I’m still trying to figure out how to comprehend that.”
Hocker’s time beat the previous Olympic record of 3:28.32 set by Jakob Ingebrigsten at the Tokyo Games three years ago.
The 23-year-old stressed the record was the farthest thing from his mind as he approached the home straight.
“It takes a lot of things to culminate, and I took full advantage of everything,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking with 150m to go that I am going to run a fast time, I was thinking I am going to win. That’s what it came down to.”
