August 7, 2021

Kenya’s Kipyegon wins 1500m race

The track and field events of the Tokyo Olympics will take place from July 30 to August 8. 43 medals for individual events is inevitable, but only 10 athletes from The ROC team are competing in the men’s 20km race walk, men’s and women’s high jump, women’s pole vault, men’s hammer throw, men’s decathlon, women’s 110m hurdle event and long jump. Despite that statistic though, there is a good chance for Olympic medal success-even with balanced odds against it

There are 48 medal events in the upcoming Olympics which means it can be hard to keep up with everything going on. To stay informed, check out this handy timeline of all major moments coming up at the 2020 Olympic Games!

Tokyo 2020 Olympics – Athletics – Women’s 1500m – Semifinal – Olympic Stadium, Tokyo, Japan – August 4, 2021. Faith Kipyegon of Kenya in action during Semifinal 1 REUTERS/Hannah Mckay

Kenya’s Kipyegon

Kenyan runner, Fait Kipyegon won the 1,500m event in track and field at the 2020 Summer Olympics. She also set an Olympic record with a time of 3.53.11 – less than two seconds slower than the World Record for this distance that was set by Ethiopia’s Genzebe Dibaba in 2015 (3:50.07). In second place came Great Britain’s Laura Muir, who ran her own national record (3:55.86); while Siffan Hassan from the Netherlands rounded out third place with a time of 3:54.50

Kipyegon, 27, is the reigning 2016 Olympic champion in the discipline.

Final

Faith Kipyegon (Kenya) 3:53.11
Laura Muir (Great Britain) – 3:54.50
Siphan Hassan (Netherlands) – 3:55.86

Other African wins

Sifan Hassan, an athlete of Ethiopian origin from the Netherlands who lives and trains in The Hague, won a gold medal in the semi-final 1500m race at the Tokyo Olympics.

Remarkably on her first lap she collided with her Ethiopian counterpart and fell down but then had to get up and continue running finishing first while bringing home a result of 4:05:17.

In addition to racing for medals in the 1500m final, Hassan will also compete for medals in 5000 meters and 10,000 meters events.