Men’s 5,000m heats add to the drama in Rio as another fall nearly brings Mo Farah down
The drama continues to unfold on the track at the Rio Olympic Games. In the men's 5,000m heats today, another fall happened which almost resulted in Mo Farah going down.
It’s been a dramatic Olympic Games on the track. Between Shaunae Miller’s dive across the 400m finish line and yesterday’s nasty fall by and subsequent show of tremendous sportsmanship by American Abbey D’agonstino and New Zealand runner Nikki Hamblin, the tumbles of the Olympic Games have caught the attention of the world. The first heat of the men’s 5,000m qualifying races today was no different.
#Gophers Hassan Mead crashed on the final lap in Rio. . https://t.co/nztqmrbgNw pic.twitter.com/yj0K8hMuxe
— BMTN Sports (@BMTNSports) August 17, 2016
The first heat this morning saw another fall. With just 200m to go, American runner Hassan Mead got tangled up and went down, nearly taking Mo Farah with him to end the pre-race favourite’s chances at taking the gold. Farah stumbled but righted himself before hitting the track, and Mead was able to make a recovery to finish strong, though he did not get himself into one of the top five spots to automatically qualify. Farah also took a fall in the 10,000m but came back to win it.
Photo of Hassan Mead's fall in 5,000. Waiting to see if officials will allow him to run in finals. #mshsl #Rio2016 pic.twitter.com/yX2tKPy4vf
— John Millea (@MSHSLjohn) August 17, 2016
Farah finished third in his heat. He’s through to the next round. First was Ethiopia’s Hagos Gebrhiwet finishing in 13:24.65. Albert Kibichii came in after him. Canadian Luc Bruchet also ran in that first heat finishing in 19th in 14:02.02. One other surprise of that first heat was that Kenyan runner Caleb Ndiku, who was thought to have a good chance ending up on the podium, but did not qualify for the final.
The Canadian to watch in the second heat was Mo Ahmed. The second heat was much faster than the first and the tension between athletes was clear with the shoving that was going on between them as they tried to clear space to move up. South African Elroy Gelant led in a fast pace for much of the race. Phillip Kipyego (Uganda) gave him competition, as did Kenya’s Isiah Koech. The lead pack was densely packed with many having a fair crack at taking the lead. Ahmed was looking competitive heading into the final two laps, the pace was fast enough that it was looking like the next five fastest times would all go through which is exactly what happened.
While Ahmed didn’t come in the automatic top five, he came sixth in 12:57.82 and will be happy to move on to the finals. Surprisingly, no Kenyan athletes will be running in the 5,000m finals.
The start list for the finals is below:
ORDER / LANE | BIB | ATHLETE | COUNTRY | SB 2016 | PB |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 2395 | Dejen GEBREMESKEL | ETH | 12:59.89 | 12:46.81 |
2 | 3057 | Paul Kipkemoi CHELIMO | 13:19.54 | 13:19.54 | |
3 | 2896 | Elroy GELANT | 13:04.88 | 13:04.88 | |
4 | 2188 | Mohammed AHMED | 13:01.74 | 13:01.74 | |
5 | 2452 | Mohamed FARAH | 12:59.29 | 12:53.11 | |
6 | 3085 | Bernard LAGAT | 13:14.96 | 12:53.60 | |
7 | 2343 | Abrar OSMAN | 13:04.12 | 13:04.12 | |
8 | 2825 | David TORRENCE | 13:19.42 | 13:16.53 | |
9 | 2162 | Birhanu BALEW | 13:14.14 | 13:14.14 | |
10 | 2393 | Muktar EDRIS | 12:59.43 | 12:54.83 | |
11 | 2444 | Andrew BUTCHART | 13:13.30 | 13:13.30 | |
12 | 2175 | Albert Kibichii ROP | 13:04.87 | 12:51.96 | |
13 | 3015 | Joshua Kiprui CHEPTEGEI | 13:00.60 | 13:00.60 | |
14 | 2048 | Brett ROBINSON | 13:19.29 | 13:18.96 | |
15 | 2396 | Hagos GEBRHIWET | 13:00.20 | 12:47.53 |