10,000 metres, Women

The favorite coming in was Kenya’s Beatrice Chebet, who had won the 5,000 metres in Paris only four days earlier and was the world record holder, having run 28:54.14 at the Prefontaine Diamond League Meet in Eugene, Oregon, in May 2024. She was expected to be challenged by defending gold medalist Sifan Hassan (NED), who was attempting the distance triple of 5-10K-Marathon.

The race started very slowly until Japan’s Rino Goshima moved to the front, only to be passed by groups of African runners who made it a decent pace. At 5,000, the pace slowed again, however, and the field bunched up. Over the next few laps, the pace varied was slow with intermittent surges. At 9,000 metres, there were still 12 runners in the lead group, as Hassan made her way to the front.

At the bell, eight runners were in the lead pack, including Chebet, Hassan, all the Kenyans, including 2023 World Champion Gudaf Tsegay (ETH), and Italy’s European Champion Nadia Battocletti. On the backstretch, Margaret Kipkemboi (KEN) led, followed by her teammate Lilian Rengeruk, and Ethiopia’s Fotyen Tesfay. Chebet then moved up as Kenya, was 1-2-3 entering the final turn, followed by Battocletti.

On the straight, Hassan attempted to move up but could not get past the leaders. Chebet finished strongly to take the gold medal and complete the 5-10K double, with Battocletti trailing for the silver medal and Hassan taking bronze. Chebet’s 5-10 double had only been done twice before by women at the Olympics – Tirunesh Dibaba (ETH) in 2008 and by Hassan at Tokyo in 2020.

Only two days later, Hassan would come back and win the marathon gold medal, giving her three medals – two bronze, one gold – in her quest to duplicate the feat of Emil Zátopek, who won three gold medals in a single edition at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. Only Finland’s Hannes Kolehmainen and France’s Alain Mimoun also won medals at these three events, but over several Olympic Games.