SAINT-DENIS, France — One race ended in a surprise; the other was a total dominance.
American Cole Hocker pulled off an upset at the Olympic track and field events on Tuesday night, edging favourites Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Josh Kerr across the finish line to claim the 1,500-metre gold medal.
Shortly after, American Gabby Thomas dominated the women's 200 metres, finishing in 21.83 seconds to add a gold to the bronze she won in Tokyo three years ago.
“This has been brewing for six years, at least,” Thomas said. “And it was all for this moment. My coach told me that everything I've done so far (Tokyo Olympics, world championships) was for this.”
Hocker won the 1,500 meters in an Olympic record time of 3 minutes and 27.65 seconds, moving from fifth to first place in the final 300 meters and beating his personal best by more than 3 seconds.
She edged out Kerr by 0.14 seconds, while Ingebrigtsen, who set the pace for the first 1,200 metres, finished fourth in a time faster than her Olympic record set in Tokyo.
“This may come as a surprise to a lot of people, but if you've been following my season, you knew I was capable of doing it,” Hocker said. “But still, things had to go my way today.”
American Yared Nuguse also set a personal best and won bronze.
“I remember, 200 [meters] “It was a really special moment, watching Cole and thinking, 'I feel good. I know he feels good. We could do something incredibly big here,'” Nuguse said. “So, I feel like in those last 200 meters, I was like, 'I know I have him right in front of me.' And that was really a moment of pushing hard and just going for it.”
Hocker's victory was the first American triumph in the metric mile since Matt Centrowitz took gold in 2016. It was the first time the Americans had put two men on the podium in the 1,500 since the Stockholm Games in 1912.
“I told myself, 'Don't let yourself go. You have to let go or you're going to regret this for the rest of your life if you don't,'” Hocker said of the final 200 meters.
With a narrow gap on the inside of lane 1, Hocker decided around the 100-meter mark to take advantage of it to overtake Kerr and take the lead at the last moment. But if you ask him about it now, he won't be able to tell you why he made that decision. It was kind of a spontaneous decision.
“I'm not really sure how that whole thing played out, how that last hundred meters played out,” Hocker said. “Wait, did the guardrail open?”
Told he had out-hit Kerr on the inside, Hocker added: “I honestly didn't remember that. I think it was an instinct, obviously.”
The race had been billed as a showdown between Ingebrigtsen and Kerr, with the Norwegian setting a fast pace as he led heading into the final 200 metres.
Ingebrigtsen quickly shot to the front and ran there for the first 3½ laps, while Kerr alternated between second and third, setting up for his typical sprint and a potential pass on Ingebrigtsen down the stretch, much like Kerr did last year to win world championship gold.
While all this was going on, Hocker, who is 5 feet 9 1/2 inches tall and more than 3 1/2 inches shorter than the two leading contenders, almost looked as if he were trying to appear in a photo of the end of this race.
He got inside once, but Ingebrigtsen blocked the move. Hocker tried again about 50 metres from the finish, outpaced them both and crossed the line with his arms outstretched and a look of disbelief on his face before beating his chest twice to celebrate a victory that almost no one saw coming.
“I thought I would be fast,” said Hocker, 23. “I thought Ingebrigtsen would want to outdo guys like me. But I knew I hadn't been tested at this level yet and I knew I was capable of being as strong as any of those guys.”
Hocker, from the University of Oregon, had a 30-1 chance of winning this race.
In the women's 200m, Thomas took the lead decisively at the turn and was never challenged down the stretch, finishing well ahead of Olympic 100m champion Julien Alfred of St Lucia, who was 0.25 seconds off the pace in 22.08.
“All I had to do was get ahead. Get ahead and then finish strong,” Thomas, 27, said of coach Tonja Buford-Bailey's last-minute advice. “And I did it.”
The Harvard graduate held her head with both hands after winning.
“You prepare for this moment and you train so hard for it, but when it comes, it's indescribable and I couldn't believe it,” Thomas said. “I never would have imagined in my wildest dreams that I would become an Olympic gold medalist. And I am, and I still haven't understood it.”
American Brittany Brown took bronze in 22.20 seconds, 0.02 seconds ahead of Britain's Dina Asher-Smith, who was another hundredth of a second ahead of teammate Daryll Neita.
Of the three sprints contested so far on the purple track at the Stade de France, the Americans have claimed two golds: Thomas followed Noah Lyles in the men's 100 metres to the top of the podium.
Thomas came in as the favorite, especially after reigning world champion Shericka Jackson of Jamaica withdrew with an apparent injury.
After earning his degree from Harvard in neurobiology and global health, Thomas enrolled at the University of Texas, where he earned a master's degree in public health to study the sleep patterns of different ethnic groups, while also making the wise decision to double down on his athletic training.
The decision was to establish a six-year calendar, with the long-term goal being this race in Paris.
Thomas didn't want the Paris Games to be his first Olympics, so he did what he could to get to Tokyo. So he did, and what he took away from that trip to Japan was a third-place finish in the 200 meters, a silver medal in the 4×100 relay and, perhaps most valuable of all, the experience.
“I feel like I've worked really hard and it's all been part of the plan. This has been a six-year plan, ever since I moved to Texas,” Thomas said. “We've worked hard every day to achieve this, so I've earned it. But it's still an amazing, indescribable feeling.”
She will have the chance to win another medal as part of the 4×100 relay team, which could be in the final on Saturday.
ESPN's Coley Harvey, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
