American Scores Biggest Upset Win of Paris Olympics

The men’s 1500 meters at the Paris Olympics was billed as a showdown between Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Great Britain’s Josh Kerr. The rivalry between the defending Olympic champion (Ingebrigtsen) and reigning world champion (Kerr) consumed all of the pre-race talk.

The two 1500 favorites never saw USA’s Cole Hocker coming — before the race or down the backstretch when Hocker was unleashing the fiercest finishing kick of his life.

The 23-year-old Hocker shocked the track and field world on Tuesday, when he beat both Ingebrigtsen and Kerr to win Olympic gold in the most improbable finish in a thrilling 1500 final at Stade de France.

Hocker, an underdog as big as 30-1, prevailed with an Olympic record time of 3 minutes and 27.65 seconds. Kerr (3:27.79) took bronze, and USA’s Yared Nuguse (3:27.80) earned bronze in another unexpected result.

“This may be an upset to a lot of people, but if you’ve been following my season, you knew I was capable of it,” Hocker said afterward. “But still, things had to go my way today.”

It all went Hocker’s way in the final 300 meters.

First, Hocker had to have a path forward while running on the inside. Ingebrigtsen, who had blocked Hocker coming off the final turn, obliged by moving away from the rail.

Next, Hocker had to hope he could catch Kerr down the final stretch. Kerr sprinted by a fading Ingebrigtsen, but Hocker caught Kerr in the final 20 meters to deliver Team USA its most unlikely gold medal.

How fast was Hocker’s sprint to the finish line? He covered the last 300 meters in 39.6 seconds and the last 100 meters in 13.0 seconds — 0.2 seconds faster than Kerr.

In an Instagram post, Ingebrigtsen congratulated the medal winners, writing that Hocker, Kerr and Nuguse “outsmarted me” and were “the best guys.”

Kerr also took to Instagram to share his post-race thoughts, writing that his “silver finish” was “pure gold.”

Hocker ran the seventh-fastest 1500 ever and came close to breaking the USA record, which was set by Bernard Lagat with a time of 3:27.40 in 2005. He is just the second American man to win the Olympic 1500 title in the last 112 years. Matthew Centrowitz won gold in 2016 at the Rio de Janeiro Games.

“I kind of figured it would be fast,” Hocker told reporters afterward. “I figured Ingebrigtsen would want to take it out of 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 out there.”