American Cole Hocker pulled off one of the biggest upsets in Olympic track and field on Tuesday night, outrunning Jakob Ingebrigtsen and then outpacing Josh Kerr and others in the closing stages to win the 1,500 meters and turn what should have been a two-man race into the surprise of the Olympics.
Hocker, who was born in Indianapolis and grew up at the University of Oregon, the heart and soul of American distance running since the days of Steve Prefontaine, kicked powerfully in the final 30 meters to finish just 0.25 seconds behind reigning world champion Kerr, in an Olympic record time of 3 minutes 27.65 seconds.
Hocker's American teammate Yared Nugse overtook Ingebrigtsen to win the bronze medal, but the defending Olympic champion set the pace for the first 1,300 metres before dropping back to fourth place.
For Ingebrigsen, it was another big disappointment, given his star status and outspoken personality, and he has never hidden his confidence in his abilities.
Announced as the final runner in the race, Ingebrigtsen held up one number on his index finger and stared into the camera for all 80,000 fans on the giant video board above the purple track. He should have held up four numbers on a night when he lost three consecutive championships in the 1,500 meters, including the 2022 and 2023 World Athletics Championships.
It was a perfect night for racing – the skies were clear, the air was still, dry and just cool – in what was to be the ultimate showdown between the imperious Ingebrigsen and Carr, the cocky Scotsman who had outdistanced Ingebrigsen for years.
The race unfolded like that until the final corner. Ingebrigtsen, the fastest runner in the field, took the lead and ran the first 800 meters at a blistering pace of 1 minute, 51.3 seconds. His strategy was a mix of guts and fear. He had the courage to attempt one of the hardest things in running: winning a race from first to last. But the move was born out of fear that other runners could finish faster than him, and his only hope was to get Carr and the rest of the field far enough behind that they would fall off the track before he could catch them.
With 200 meters to go, he heard the roar of the crowd get so loud it felt like his head was going to split. He turned his head to the right and saw Carr closing in. By the time they reached the final straight, Carr was on track to pass him.
Wow. 😱
In a stunning upset, American Cole Hocker won the gold medal in the men's 1500 meters! #ParisOlympics pic.twitter.com/wlq81lbvSO
— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) August 6, 2024
But the former Oregon Ducks athlete also showed speed that we've seen before, but never at this level or pace: He stayed in the middle of the pack for the final 600 meters, not too close to the leaders, but not too far away, and when the time came to start, he ran fast enough to set both an Olympic and American record in one of the marathon events of the Olympics.
“I told myself, I'm in this race,” Hocker said. “If they can just let me fly under the radar, that's fine. I think that might be for the best.”
Kerr had watched Hocker's victory up close – the Scotsman had set a personal best and a national record and there was little to be disappointed about – but he had no idea what was going on behind the scenes.
He looked at the scoreboard and saw that Ingebrigsen had dropped to fourth place. A big smile spread across his face. He turned to Höcker and Nugse and began applauding them as if they were old friends.
Kerr's Great Britain teammate Neil Gourley has run under Hocker's coach Ben Thomas and trained with Hocker for 10 years, and said he wasn't at all surprised by the result.
“If he has that call and there's something left with 150 metres to go, he's dangerous,” he said. “I don't think the public will be surprised if they've seen what he's done in the US.”
Still, why wouldn't you think so?
This was the race that every running fanatic had circled on the Olympic schedule, but it wasn't Hocker's fault. In a sport where respect and civility, at least in public, take precedence, Ingebrigten and Carr exchanged insults.
When Ingebrigtsen arrived on the scene five years ago, there was a certain Scandinavian charm to him: he was a middle-distance champion from a country where Olympic medals are typically won on skis rather than spikes, and he was the youngest of three running brothers.
Their eldest son, Henrik, placed fifth in the 1500m at the 2012 Olympics, while their second son, Filip, won a bronze medal in the 1500m at the 2017 World Championships. Their father, Gert, kept a close watch on them during training and warned them not to get involved with girlfriends, but that didn't work.
The family allowed Norwegian television cameras to follow them for a documentary, showcasing their rather ascetic life. “Team Ingebrigtsen” was a huge hit, catapulting the brothers to fame, especially Jakob, who won gold in the 1,500 meters at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. Imagine a “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” lifestyle for Norwegian long-distance runners, and you'll see what we mean.
Ingebrigten would go on to win gold in the 5,000m at the 2022 and 2023 World Championships. But before he knew it, his appeal had started to wane, especially among members of the north of England, and specifically the Edinburgh Athletic Club in Scotland.
But somewhere along the line, Ingebrigtsen's confident charm morphed into something approaching haughty disdain for his competitors, and he refused to back down from that attitude even when he began losing races to members of the aforementioned Edinburgh Athletics Club.
Ingebrigtsen is good at running but a little less graceful in winning and losing, especially in losing. Perhaps his words were lost in translation, but when asked in May 2022 if he was disappointed that his competitors didn't push him further, he replied: “You can't be disappointed because people aren't better.”
But the response was muted, and two months later, Ingebrigtsen was forced to retract his comments after Jake Wightman beat him in the 1500m final at the 2022 World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon. Ingebrigtsen immediately began telling others that he had not been 100% and that Wightman was a “lesser athlete.”
Last year, the 26-year-old Carr, also from Scotland and a former University of New Mexico college star, began beating Ingebrigtsen. Carr beat Ingebrigtsen at the 2023 World Championships in Budapest, even though he claimed Ingebrigtsen wasn't at his best, and he also won the Prefontaine Classic this year. Carr calls Carr “the next guy,” meaning a runner who can win even when not fully fit.
He made no such claim Tuesday night, at least not in English.
Asked if he regretted his decision to jump to the front, he answered “yes” and “no.”
“Obviously it was a tactical mistake not slowing down in the first 800 metres,” he said. “I was just a bit too fast.”
With 650 meters to go, he said he felt Kerr and the others pick up the pace, testing him to see how hard he could run. He tried to respond but said he ran out of gas. The 1,500 meters turned out to be “just 100 meters too long.”
“I ruined myself by trying too hard,” he said.
But that wasn't the case for Hocker, just 23. Hocker was one of a trio of young American milers who ran one of the best domestic races at that distance in Olympic history, with 25-year-old Nguse, an Ethiopian immigrant born in Kentucky who attended the University of Notre Dame, coming in third and 21-year-old Hobbs Kessler of Ann Arbor coming in fifth.
Kessler described Ingebrigtsen as at the peak of fitness. “It shows how difficult it is to start from the front,” he said.
Wasn't that true on Tuesday night, especially with an angry Scotsman and two fame-hungry Americans in hot pursuit?
“Me and Cole both knew that on a good day we could win,” Nugse said. “It was just a really cool moment.”
For him and for Hocker.
“It was an unbelievable feeling,” Hocker said. “I felt like the stadium and God had my back. My body just moved on its own. My heart was all there and I could see the finish line.”
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(Photo by Michael Steele/Getty Images)
