Last update on. From the section OlympicsEthiopia's Selemon barega defeated Joshua Cheptegei, the world champion and holder of the world record, to win 10,000m gold at Tokyo's first ever athletics final.Barega, the world 5,000m silver medallist, surged ahead on the final lap's back straight. He refused to be stopped and won in 27 minutes 43.22 secs.Cheptegei was slow to respond to Barega's initial break but came in second at 0.41 seconds.Marc Scott, a Briton, was 14th while Sam Atkin dropped out.Scott and Atkin competed in the Rio 2016 champion Mo Farah's place. Mo Farah had been concentrating on the marathon for three years before returning to track.In 2020, Cheptegei of Uganda set three world records across track and road. This was after his Doha 2019 victory that saw him win 10,000m.The 24-year-old has had mixed results in 2021 and has not raced since.Barega's promise to deliver has been evident since Barega won the world Under-20 5,000m title at just 16 years old. Now, the title is back in Ethiopia for the first-time since Farah's victory at London 2012.Haile Gebrselassie, Kenenisa Begkele and Kenenisa Arekele were compatriots and won the back-to-back title at Atlanta 1996, Sydney 2000, Athens 2004, Beijing 2008 and Athens 2004. Jacob Kiplimo from Uganda won the bronze.McColgan was subject to several bumps in the congested heat field of 5,000m.Eilish McColgan and Amy-Louise Markovc, a British trio, failed to make the 5,000m heats earlier in the afternoon.McColgan's mother, McColgan, won the 10,000m title in Japan 30 years ago."I shouted at them, saying "stop clipping my legs, stop clipping mine;" She said, "Every single lap.""I was always aware that I was going down. I could sense when someone was going down. This made me anxious and gave me no energy."It's crazy, it's so far from my best, if someone told me that I'd do that time, I would have believed that I'd lose one leg doing that time."Sophie McKinna was the first British woman to win a world shot put final in Doha 2019. However, she could not reach the same stage in Tokyo.McKinna was one of many British athletes who had self-isolated after a Covid incident on their flight from London to Tokyo. Her opening attempt at 17.81m was 80cm below her personal best.Tomorrow's Olympic mixed 4x400m relay will see Britain participate. Cameron Chalmers and Zoey Clark, Emily Diamond, Lee Thompson, and Emily Diamond were the fastest quartets, but they are not automatically qualified.Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands, who attempted an unheard-of Olympic distance triple, won her first outing on track with a comfortable win in her 5,000m heat. She plans to compete in the 1500m as well as 10,000m events, in which she is a world champion.
