Tokyo Olympics: GB's Josh Kerr takes 1500m bronze as Jakob Ingebrigtsen beats Timothy Cheruiyot to gold
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'My US visa says I'm an entertainer...' - GB's Kerr wins brilliant 1500m bronze
Tokyo Olympic Games on the BBC |
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Dates: 23 July-8 August Time in Tokyo: BST +8 |
Coverage: Watch live on BBC TV, BBC iPlayer, BBC Red Button and online; Listen on BBC Radio 5 Live, Sports Extra and Sounds; live text and video clips on BBC Sport website and app. |
Great Britain's Josh Kerr claimed bronze as Norway's 20-year-old Jakob Ingebrigtsen overhauled world champion Timothy Cheruiyot for 1500m gold.
Kerr, sixth at the 2019 World Championships, was only four hundredths of a second behind Kenyan Cheruiyot and silver as he came home in a personal best three minutes 29.05 seconds.
The 23-year-old Scot raced smartly, hanging off the pace before coming on strong in the last 250 metres to win GB's first medal in the men's event since Peter Elliott's silver in 1988.
His time also leapfrogs him to second in an illustrious all-time British list, with Mo Farah the only man to have gone faster.
Sebastian Coe and Steve Cram are two of those to slip a place on that list, and this final was the first time since they completed a one-two at Los Angeles 1984 that Great Britain have had three men in a 1500m Olympic final.
Jake Heyward and Jake Wightman, other leading lights in Britain's new generation of middle-distance prospects, finished ninth and 10th in 3:34.43 and 3:35.09 respectively.
"This has been a hard championship for me with the first round not going great," said Kerr, who finished seventh in his first-round heat and had to rely on a fastest loser spot to progress.
"I had this weird confidence in myself - some may call it cockiness - when you put the effort and work in and you're surrounded by a team, like myself, you can go all the way.
"When the first medal came back to our GB camp with [women's 800m silver medallist] Keely Hodgkinson, I had to take myself away and say I want to create that for myself. I wanted to be the one everyone looks at - I'm that self-centred!"
Kerr, far left, set a personal best and became the second fastest Briton over 1500m as he claimed his first major medal
Norwegian star Ingebrigtsen is the fastest man in the world this year over 5,000m, but opted to train his sights on 1500m instead.
He had had a grim run of form against Cheruiyot, who had won all 10 of their previous meetings over the distance, but Ingebrigtsen proved far stronger in the closing stages to reverse that trend and win the first major title of an immensely promising career in an Olympic record 3:28.32.
Hassan secures historic distance double
Hassan's three-pronged Olympic campaign has seen her cover more than 15 mils on the track in less than 10 days
The Netherlands' Sifan Hassan became only the second woman to do the 5,000-10,000m Olympic double as she stalked down world record-holder Letesenbet Gidey to win gold over the longer distance.
Hassan, who won 1500m bronze in the second event of her ambitious distance campaign on Friday, never looked ruffled as Ethiopia's Gidey raised the pace but failed to shake the Dutchwoman out of her slipstream.
Gidey, who has not raced since June, could not make her additional freshness count and when world champion Hassan eased past her 250 metres from home, she had no answer.
Bahrain's Ethiopian-born Kalkidan Gezahegne followed Hassan home to claim silver, with Gidey finishing third, more than six seconds behind the winner.
While falling short of a unprecedented treble, Hassan's golds at 5,000m and 10,000m mean she matches Ethiopian great Tirunesh Dibaba's achievement at Beijing 2008.
Eilish McColgan, who failed to make the 5,000m final, came ninth in a creditable 31:04.66, six seconds outside her personal best in punishingly hot and humid conditions.
Team-mate Jessica Judd finished 17th.
Felix moves clear with 11th Olympic medal
Felix has seven golds, three silvers and a bronze in her Olympic career
Allyson Felix moved clear of the great Carl Lewis to become the most decorated United States track and field athlete of all time as a star-studded American team claimed women's 4x400m gold for the seventh successive time.
Felix, 35, combined with 400m hurdles gold and silver medallists Sydney McLaughlin and Dalilah Muhammad and 800m champion Athing Mu in a dominant 3:16.85 victory ahead of Poland and Jamaica.
It is Felix's 11th Olympic medal, a run that started with 200m silver as a 22-year-old at Beijing 2008.
Britain's quartet, consisting of Ama Pipi, Jodie Williams, Emily Diamond and Nicole Yeargin, finished fifth.
The United States men's team repeated the women's success as Rai Benjamin, 400m hurdles silver medallist, anchored them home to gold, ahead of the Netherlands and Botswana.
Neeraj Chopra won India's first track and field gold in Olympic history as his effort of 87.58m trumped Czech pair Jakub Vadlejch and Vitezslav Vesely in the javelin.
The final athletics gold of the Games went to Mariya Lasitskene, one of 10 Russians allowed to compete under her Olympic Committee flag, as the 28-year-old added her first Olympic gold to three world titles.
Lasitskene wobbled at 1.96m, which she only cleared at the third attempt, but went on to go over 2.04m, the highest of any woman this year.
Australia's Nicola McDermott claimed an emotional silver ahead Ukrainian 19-year-old Yaroslava Mahuchikh.
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