Stade de France had already witnessed enough rough and tumble for one day before the event which includes 28 barriers and seven water jumps over 3,000 metres of the track. Then enter Soufiane El Bakkali versus Lamecha Girma.
Three years ago in Tokyo, El Bakkali ended Kenya’s reign of eight successive Olympic steeplechase champions, from 1984-2016, and the 28-year-old from Moroccan was not about to surrender that title without a proper fight.
Girma was fancied as the man most likely to take El Bakkali down. At last year’s Paris Diamond League, Girma ran a world record of 7:52.11, the Ethiopian also losing the last two World Championship titles to his Moroccan rival.
After stalking each other throughout, Girma made a frighteningly fast move to get to the front over the third last barrier, down the backstretch, only to clip it with his leg, and with that sent himself flying high and then rolling on to the track. It was not a pretty fall, although reportedly he didn’t any serious injury.
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With Girma out of his way, El Bakkali still had to get past Ken Rooks of the US and Kenya’s Abraham Kibiwot, the Moroccan winning in 8:06.05 – the first man to successfully defend the title since 1932.
In the morning session, six runners fell in the men’s 5,000m heats, across three separate incidents, Britain’s George Mills among them; he was later one of four runners reinstated for Saturday’s final, which will now be a 20-man race.
Jakob Ingebrigtsen is among them too, back on the track just over 12 hours after being run into fourth of the 1,500m, and the Norwegian ran exactly as he likes it, taking control over the last lap to win in 13:51.59; Ireland’s Brian Fay was never in contention for the top eight that qualified, and finished 13th in 13:55.35. Less than four seconds back, but a long way off the final.
For about 395m of the men’s 400 final, Matt Hudson-Smith looked poised to become Britain’s first male winner of the event since the Flying Scot Eric Liddell’s triumph also here in Paris, in the Games of 1924 – his heroic feat later a central part of the film Chariots of Fire.
Last month Hudson-Smith improved the British record to 43.74 seconds, making him one of the gold medal favourites, but Quincy Hall from the USA never gave up the chase, getting past him in the last few strides to win in 43.40, a new personal best – with Hudson-Smith holding on for silver, smashing that British record again with his 43.44, only .04 between gold and silver.
After Australia’s Nina Kennedy and USA’s Katie Moon shared gold in the women’s pole vault at last year’s World Championships in Budapest, their Paris showdown was expected to be close, and so it proved, Kennedy getting the Olympic gold this time with her best clearance of 4.90, Moon still appearing well pleased with winning silver with a best of 4.85.
