USA’s Cole Hocker Shocks The World To Win 1500m Gold, GB’s Josh Kerr Takes Silver

Jakob Ingebrigtsen knows that he’s the best 1500m runner in the world. 

Josh Kerr knows that he’s the best 1500m runner in the world. 

But Cole Hocker is the best 1500m runner in the world, and in a thrilling men’s 1500m Olympic final it was the American who outran the field to win gold in a new Olympic record of 3:27.65. GB’s Josh Kerr finished in second, with USA’s Yared Nuguse in third. Norway’s Ingebrigtsen, having led most of the race, was fourth.

It was a race which lived up to its billing as one of the most exciting events at the Olympics, and played out exactly as Kerr predicted when he said it would be “one of the most vicious and hardest 1500m races seen in a very long time.”

But the result was not what many people expected. 

The pre-race talk was of the rivalry between Ingebrigtsen and Kerr, of how they both confidently expected to win, and how it was impossible to predict who would take home gold and who would take silver, with a 10-man battle for bronze behind them.

Hocker and Nuguse had other ideas. 

Ingebrigtsen moved to the front early in the race and pushed at world record pace. He still led with 200m to go, with Kerr just on his shoulder. As Ingebrigtsen and Kerr focused on each other, Hocker found a gap on the inside, while Nuguse found a line on the outside.

With Ingebrigtsen fading, Hocker timed his sensational sprint finish perfectly to move ahead and take the win, and it took a photo finish to determine that Kerr had finished just one-hundredth of a second ahead of Nuguse, who ran an incredible final 100m. All four men were inside the previous Olympic record, which had been held by Ingebrigtsen.

In leading from the start and forcing a terrific pace, Ingebrigtsen took control of the final, but instead of running himself to Olympic glory, he put on a race which left Hocker with a gold medal and a new Olympic and national record, and gave his rival Kerr a silver medal and a new British record, and enabled Nuguse to take a bronze and a new personal best. There was nothing left for Ingebrigtsen. 

So much was made of the rivalry between Kerr and Ingebrigtsen, and that created the excitement, the tension, the narrative of the 1500m. It gave us two heroes (or perhaps villans) to battle it out, with both knowing that they were the best and could win gold, and both wanting so badly to beat the other. But behind them were men determined not to be footnotes in someone else’s story.

In the end, Kerr is happier than Ingebrigtsen. “I ran the fastest and best tactical 1500m I’ve ever done in my life,” said Kerr after the race. “It’s obviously not the colour medal I want, but it’s working towards the right colour,” and he’s consistently proving that he can win medals at major events. Kerr ran the race of his life, but Hocker ran a better one. 

Cole Hocker is the best 1500m runner in the world right now. But the rivalry between Kerr and Ingebrigtsen isn’t over. And now they know just how good the other men around them are.

The men’s 1500m looks set to be the most exciting men’s track event for many years to come. 

Photo Getty Images / Steph Chambers