20-Year-Old Emmanuel Wanyonyi brings home prestigious Olympics Gold Medal

_{By Andrew Greif for World Athletics}.

In a year that has produced many of history’s fastest men’s 800m times, Emmanuel Wanyonyi needed another blazing performance to win Olympic gold at the Paris 2024 Games on Saturday (10).

With his winning time of 1:41.19, the Kenyan became the third-fastest performer in history, behind only world record-holder David Rudisha and Wilson Kipketer. Rudisha’s record of 1:40.90, which doubles as the Olympic record from his victory in London in 2012, still stands. 

At the age of 20, Wanyonyi became the youngest ever winner of the event in Olympic history, leading a race of unprecedented depth. 

He held off Canada’s Marco Arop, the world champion, whose kick off the final turn put him ahead of Wanyonyi briefly before Wanyonyi took back the lead in the final steps. Arop ran a North American record of 1:41.20 for silver and Algeria’s Djamel Sedjati was third in 1:41.50. 

With the gold medal, Wanyonyi – who emerged from Friday’s semifinals with the fastest qualifying time – kept alive a remarkable streak of five consecutive gold medals for Kenya in the men’s 800m. The streak began in 2008, and in London, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo, multiple Kenyan men claimed a medal.

This story was first published by World Athletics. Read the full story by following this link: https://worldathletics.org/competitions/olympic-games/paris24/news/article/paris-2024-olympics-report-men-800m