Uganda’s Joshua Cheptegei withstood surging Ethiopian team tactics to claim gold in the men’s Olympic 10,000-metre at the Stade de France.
The three-time world champion timed an Olympic record of 26 minutes and 43.14 seconds for victory on Friday.
Ethiopia’s Berihu Aregawi edged American Grant Fisher by two-hundredths of a second to take silver in 26:43.44.
The world record holder added the Olympic 10,000 metres title to his remarkable haul to take the Games’ first track gold.
The Ugandan, who took silver in Tokyo and gold over 5,000 metres, produced a devastating last 600 metres and his finishing time took 18 seconds off Kenenisa Bekele’s 2008 Olympic record.
Aregawi, who had been part of a three-pronged Ethiopian front-running group almost from the start, finished strongly.
A pack of 13 athletes ran the last two-thirds of the race together and, remarkably, all of them finished in under 27 minutes.
The first surge came after just two laps of the 25-lap race, defending champion Selemon Barega and Ethiopian teammate Yomif Kejelcha accelerating away to split the field.
The 25-strong field dissipated but all runners held on.
Aregawi had his turn after Kejelcha as the Ethiopian trio dictated the pace in front of a noisy near-capacity 69,000 crowd at the Stade de France in perfect warm conditions.
Cheptegei and Jacob Kiplimo saw their team tactics take a dent when Martin Magengo Kiprotich fell off the pace early on.
Aregawi and Kejelcha again increased the rhythm through the halfway stage, the main pack now cut to 15.
Barega was back at the helm with 10 laps to run, Canada’s Mohammed Ahmed and Kenya’s Benard Kibet muscling their way through to sit on Kejelcha’s shoulder.
As Cheptegei and Fisher made their way up through a bunching pack, Kejelcha was again on hand to offer a spurt of acceleration.
Into the last kilometre, Aregawi took up the running, but the race promised a pulsating finish as the pack of 12 all clung on.
Just before the bell rang for the final 400 metres, Cheptegei surged to the front and the race to the line was on.
Ahmed followed and Fisher fell off the pace, but made a remarkable recovery to medal.
There was no coup de grace for Barega, however, as Cheptegei held on for victory in the first medal event at France’s national stadium.
Barega eventually finished seventh in 26:44.48, one spot behind Kejelcha, with Ahmed taking fourth and Kibet fifth.
USA set new world record in 4×400 mixed relay
Earlier on the purple track, the USA broke their own world record in the 4×400 mixed relay in the opening heats, crossing the line in three minutes 7.41 seconds amid a party atmosphere.
They set the previous mark of 3:08.80 at the 2023 World Championships in Budapest.
Team USA led midway through the second lap in a textbook performance, overcoming a fast field in the opening heat in which four national records were broken as well as the world mark.
“I always knew we were going to run fast, and we talked about how it was going to take a record to win a medal,” said American Shamier Little. “It took a record to win our prelim.”
The French team were willed across the finish by a partisan home crowd, as they held off Belgium (3:10.74) and Jamaica (3:11.06) to finish second in 3:10.60 in the rarely contested event.
The crowd had to be shushed as they chanted for the French team on the first day of the athletics programme at the Stade de France and they broke into a loud roar as France took a slender lead.
Little pulled ahead for the US, however, and Bryce Deadmon extended the lead.
The Americans were eager to avoid the drama of three years ago, when they were disqualified from the Olympic final – and later reinstated due to an official’s error – before eventually claiming bronze.
