Epic Paris Finale: Wanyonyi Masterclass 800, Hoppel Breaks American Record, US 4x400s World Record Scares
By LetsRun.com
PARIS – The stadium portion of the track & field competition at the 2024 Olympics concluded on Saturday night at the Stade de France with a jam-packed session of finals only. The men’s 800, in which Emmanuel Wanyonyi edged Marco Arop, 1:41.19 to 1:41.20, and the men’s 4×400 relay, featuring a near-world record by the USA to defeat a determined Botswana team, were the two standout races.
In other action, the US women won the 4×400 handily and missed the world record by a tenth of a second, Jakob Ingebrigtsen made it three straight global titles by winning the 5,000, and Faith Kipyegon set an Olympic record of 3:51.29 in the 1500 to become the first woman to win an individual running event at three Olympic Games. There was also a second medal for Grant Fisher – and fifth overall for the US men’s distance crew – as he claimed bronze in the 5,000 thanks to a late surge that brought him from 8th to 3rd over the final 250 meters. Jakob’s and Faith’s wins, plus Fisher’s historic medal in a separate article here.
Below, we analyze everything else and have quick recaps of the field event finals, which saw Hamish Kerr defeat Shelby McEwen in a jump-off for high jump gold.
Quick Take: The men’s 800 is back, and we have a new king
Emmanuel Wanyonyi gets gold (Kevin Morris photo)
The last time that a global final of the 800 was won in under 1:43 was in 2019 when Donavan Brazier won in 1:42.34. Where would that time put him tonight? All the way back in 7th. The winning time wasn’t as fast as the London 2012 but most of the other places were. This was the first race ever with four men under 1:42 and places 2-7 all ran quicker than anyone else had ever run in any 800 race before. We’ve entered a new era in the men’s 800, as the 10 quickest times in the last five seasons have all been from this season.
Wanyonyi’s run was similar to Rudisha’s in 2012 in that he led almost wire-to-wire (France’s Gabriel Tual edged ahead on the back straight but never got the rail) and dragged the rest of the field to some crazy times. But he closed much harder. At London 2012, Rudisha went out in 49.28 and hit 600 in 1:14.30 before coming home in 26.61. Tonight, Wanyonyi was a full second slower at 400 (50.28) and 600 (1:15.50) but ran his last 200 in 25.69.
While Wanyonyi may be the Olympic champion, it’s clear there is not much of a gap between the very best men in this event. But there soon could be. Remember, Wanyonyi was the world junior champion in 2021, 4th at the 2022 Worlds as a 17-year-old, 2nd last year at 19 (his birthday is August 1), and is now the youngest Olympic champion ever and third-fastest man in history barely a week after turning 20. His chief rivals Arop (25), Sedjati (25), and Hoppel (26) are all significantly older. Rudisha’s world record may be on borrowed time.
Quick Take: Marco Arop had no regrets with how he ran
Last year, Arop went from last to first over the final 400 to win gold at Worlds, running down Wanyonyi with a monster 53.38-50.86 negative split. Tonight, Arop got out harder (51.1) and closed faster (50.1) than in Budapest; the problem was, Wanyonyi also improved from last year and had enough to hold him off.
It’s very hard to criticize Arop considering he just became the fourth-fastest man in history, but it’s worth noting that he ran wide on both the first turn (outside of lane 1) and last turn (lane 2) of the final lap. It’s pretty simple: when more guys run faster, they are harder to pass and you often must run more distance. That is the drawback of running from the back.
But Arop said he had no regrets. He felt comfortable running back his race plan from Budapest.
“In a race like that, you just want to be clear. You don’t want any accidents happening. I thought being in the back or being outside or in front would have been the best move. I didn’t want to run too much extra distance – I think being on the outside might have hurt a little bit, but at the end of the day, it’s still the best race I’ve ever run.”
Quick Take: Bryce Hoppel said it was “heartbreaking” to miss out on a medal
Hoppel was very confident he could run 1:41 tonight and he did just that. He obliterated both his own personal best of 1:42.77 as well as Donovan Brazier’s American record of 1:42.34 by running 1:41.67. It just was not enough for a medal in a race that featured the fastest podium in Olympic history – a hard fact for Hoppel to swallow.
“I knew we were going to come out and run these times, and we did it. But I still didn’t get the job done. And it’s pretty tough to miss the medals by that much and see it slip away,” Hoppel said. …”It really is heartbreaking that that didn’t get the job done, but it’s what I had today and I put my heart out there.”
Hoppel thought perhaps he should have pushed from a little further out, such as when Arop passed him entering the final turn. But that was his post-race analysis. At the time, Hoppel was not sure how his legs would respond given he had run 1:43 in the semis yesterday.
“I know I have the strength to push it from further out,” Hoppel said. “And it’s always hard to make the decisions in the moment. You never know what’s left in your legs. [I] left it too long and let people get by in the last 100. It’s tough.”
Would that have been the difference between finishing on the podium or not? It’s hard to say. Hoppel had room to run in the final 100, and no matter what happened, someone very, very good was going to be left off the podium. Tonight it was Hoppel.
And Hoppel still might end up on the podium as minutes after the Olympic final, French newspaper L’Equipe published a report saying that Agents from the Central Office for the Fight against Environmental and Public Health Attacks “carried out searches in the Olympic village on Thursday before the semifinals as part of an investigation targeting tonight’s bronze medalist Djamel Sedjati and his coach Amar Benida. There are few further details available at the moment and it is unclear what, if anything was found, but is a situation to monitor moving forward.
It must be reported that Sedjati says no such raid took place. “I assure the Algerian people that I was not subjected to any raid in the Olympic Village,” said Sedjati in this article.
Quick Take: Why is the 800 so fast this year?
The 800 was one of the least compelling events in track & field in 2021 and 2022 but started heating up at the end of 2023 with Arop and Wanyonyi going back and forth. But a month ago, the event went crazy, with three men running 1:41 in the Paris Diamond League. Tonight, there were four. What happened?
Arop noted that spikes and tracks are both better than ever and that we are seeing a new generation of 800m runners hitting their primes at the same time. Arop, who was 6th in the Monaco Diamond League last month, also said he decided to start using sodium bicarbonate just before the Olympics and said he felt it played a factor in his performance in Paris.
“I figured, if everyone else is using it, [I should too],” Arop said. “And it’s been working wonders.”
- Bryce Hoppel 1:41.67 AR
- FOUR MEN UNDER 1:42 AT THE 800M FINAL
- Sedjati under investigation. L’Equippe says searches were conducted by police in Olympic Village.
Masai Russell never won an NCAA title but now she’s the Olympic 100 hurdles champion
In college at the University of Kentucky, Masai Russell never won an NCAA title. She was always close but never winning – last year she was 2nd in the 60mh, 100mh and 400mh.
In her first full year as a pro, Russell has only won two 100mH races this year–and they happened to be the biggest of her life: the U.S. Olympic Trials (12.25 pb), and the Olympic final, which she won tonight in 12.33.
In front of 70,000 fans at the Stade de France, she managed to hunt down the defending Olympic champion, fellow Kentucky alum Jasmine Camacho-Quinn of Puerto Rico, and France’s Cyrena Samba-Mayela just before the finish line. For Samba-Mayela, this has been a remarkable return to form; the world indoor silver medalist came down with COVID in June and struggled to break 12.6, but she saved her best for the biggest stage and claimed her first medal at a global outdoor championship – and France’s first track medal of the champs.
Fun fact, Russell actually ran .01 slower tonight to win Olympic gold than she did to finish 2nd at NCAAs last year (admittedly the NCAA meet did have a 3.8 m/s wind).
The US men and women’s 4 x 400s both ran the 2nd fastest times in history
Rai Benjamin anchored the US to the #2 time ever (Kevin Morris photo)
The women winning in a blowout was to be expected and they lived up to the hype. Thanks in part to Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone’s 47.71 split on leg 2, the US women ran 3:15.27 and just missed the Soviet Union’s drug-induced world and Olympic record of 3:15.17 from 1988.
The US men, running without individual 400m champion Quincy Hall who picked up an injury in the 400 final, ran an Olympic record 2:54.43 (the world record is 2:54.29). What’s crazy is that barely gave them the win. You think when you give your anchor, in this case Rai Benjamin, the stick with the lead and he splits a 43.18, you win going away. Not when the team behind you is Botswana and they are featuring 300m WR holder Letsile Tebogo.
Tebogo ran the second-fastest split in history (from our research) of 43.04 and wasn’t quite able to track down Benjamin as Botswana settled for silver in an African record of 2:54.53 with Great Britain third in a European record of 2:55.83 (Japan also set an Asian record of 2:58.33 in 6th). Whether you realized it while it was happening or not, this was an all-time battle between two exceptional squads and two even better individual superstars.
NOTE: The fastest 4×400 split of all-time belongs to Michael Johnson from the 1993 World Championships in Stuttgart, where he split 42.94.
Before today, there was one national team in history to break 2:56–the United States. Now, there are three teams that have gone sub-2:56 and the last of them, Great Britain, only managed bronze.
The men’s high jumpers did not elect to share the gold medal like three years ago, but they should never be put in position to make that decision in the first place
There would be no repeat of the Tokyo Olympics this time around as co-gold medalists Gianmarco Tamberi and Mutaz Barshim failed to defend their golds and there was no sharing of gold this time around – though that was an option for the eventual 1-2. Tamberi, who was hospitalized earlier in the day with kidney stones, bowed out at 2.27m and Barshim only managed bronze this time around. Instead, New Zealand’s Hamish Kerr and American Shelby McEwen were the best on the night as they both cleared 2.36 (equal to Kerr’s pb and a new pb for McEwen) and they had the opportunity to share gold once again, but they didn’t do it.
From a financial standpoint, it was likely foolish not to share gold but we give them major props for not taking the easy way out.
“Talking to Hamish, man, I’ve been around him for a long time now. We’re good buddies, good opponents, and good jumpers when we jump together. He said he wanted to face off, and I was all for it,” explained McEwen rather simply afterwards. “We faced off until the last battle and he came out on top, so salute, congratulations to him.”
Elite sports are beloved because they are competitions where winners and losers are decided. Ties should not be part of the equation. There is a reason why we have overtime, penalty kicks, jump backs, etc. Guess how many shared wins there have been on the Diamond League circuit since 2021? Zero. But we almost had two straight at the Olympics? That would have been absurd.
Kitaguchi ended the women’s javelin early
Haruka Kitaguchi had no interest in prolonging her bid for Olympic gold with six throws. Instead, she chose to claim gold with her very first throw of the evening–launching 65.80m and winning by nearly two whole meters. South Africa’s Jo-Ane Van Dyk managed 63.93m for silver and Nikola Ogrodnikova finished in bronze medal position with a mark of 63.68m.
Saturday Talk:
- Bryce Hoppel 1:41.67 AR
- FOUR MEN UNDER 1:42 AT THE 800M FINAL
- Sedjati under investigation. L’Equippe says searches were conducted by police in Olympic Village.
- Why would McEwen and Kerr not choose to share the gold?
- USA 400m Trials winner Kendal Ellis pulled from women’s 4x400m only minutes before the race.
