Ready, Steady, Go! Trivia Quiz

Noah Lyles (US) achieved a personal best of 9.79 seconds to win the 100 metres gold medal. Kishane Thompson (Jamaica) came second some 5 milliseconds later so it was a bit of a photo finish. Fred Kerley (US) won the bronze two hundredths of a second off the pace.

It was the first time in 20 years that a US athlete had won the event. For the first time, all eight finalists had run under 10 seconds in the semi-finals. Fred Kerley was the fastest on paper, having previously run 9.76 seconds.

The favourite going into the 110 metres hurdles finals was Grant Holloway (US). He had won three World Championships (2019, 2022 & 2023), the Indoor Championships twice (over 60m, 2022 and 2024), as well as set the Indoor World Record (in 2021). He succeeded in bettering his silver medal at the previous Olympics. Fellow American Daniel Roberts just pipped Rasheed Broadbell of Jamaica for the silver medal.

With three successive World Championships at this distance, Noah Lyles (USA) was the favourite in the 200 metres final. However he was the bronze medallist on this occasion, matching his place at the previous Olympics. He was beaten by fellow American Kenneth Bednarek, who took the silver medal, whilst the gold medal went to Letsile Tebogo of Botswana. Lyles had tested positive for COVID-19 two days previously.

The 400 metres gold medal was won in a time of 43.40 sec. and only four hundredths of a second separated gold from silver places. The world record was 43.04 (set at the 2016 Olympics in Rio). The gold medal went to Quincy Hall (USA), silver to Matthew Hudson-Smith (GB) and bronze to Muzala Samukonga of Zambia. Hall came from fourth place to win with Hudson-Smith's European record time being the fastest non-winning time recorded.

A new generation of runners were at Paris for the 800 metres contest. None of the medal winners from the previous Games were present. In the final, Emmanuel Wanyonyi (Kenya) moved up at the break line (where runners could leave their lanes) coming from fifth and holding the lead to win the race. Both Marco Arap (Canada) and Djamel Sedjati (Algeria) came from the back of the pack at the bell to secure silver and bronze respectively with four athletes breaking the 1:42 barrier.

The winning margin was 0.01 seconds.

For some the 1500 metres race was seen as a race between the Jakob Ingebrigtsen (Norway) and Josh Kerr (GB). Ingebrigtsen won the gold at the previous Olympics in Tokyo but then lost the 2022 and 2023 World Championship races to sprint finishes by Jake Wightman and then his club mate Kerr.

Injury kept Wightman out of the Paris Olympics. Ingebrigtsen's strategy was to lead from the front at a pace to burn out the sprinters. It failed and his focus on Kerr created a gap for Cole Hocker (US) to go through and win. Kerr came second with the bronze going to Nared Yuguse (US), followed by Ingebrigtsen.

The 3000 metres steeplechase in the years leading up to Paris had been dominated by African runners. Soufiane El Bakkali (Morocco) was the returning Olympic champion as well as the 2022 and 2023 World Championships winner. World Record-holder Lamecha Girma (Ethiopia) was the silver medalist going back to 2019.

The normal race pattern was disrupted when Kenneth Rooks (USA) hit the front at the bell, signalling the last lap. Girma tripped over a barrier with 200 metres to go, knocking himself unconscious and creating a hazard for the field. El Bakkali avoided Girma and won the race to become the first man to defend his Olympic title at this distance. Rooks took second place with Abraham Kibiwot (Kenya) in third.

Jakob Ingebrigtsen (Norway) ran in this his second Olympic track event (the other was the 1500m). He had lost out at the 2022 and 2023 World Championships in the 1500 metres. He went on at both those championships to win gold in the 5000 metres races. Having failed to make the medals in the 1500 metres at this Olympic Games, he went on (again) to comfortably win the gold in the 5000 metres. None of the other previous Olympic or World Champion medalists won a medal with silver going to Ronald Kwemoi (Kenya) and Grant Fisher (USA) taking bronze.

There were no heats for the 10000 metres race. Runners qualified to run by meeting the entry standard or through ranking. Various likely contenders including the World Record holder Joshua Cheptegei (Uganda) had not competed at the distance that year.

In the race the three Ethiopian runners (including the defending champion) attempted to control the race from the front. They set up a wall which forced Cheptegei around the outside and into the lead with 600 metres to go. He kept his lead with Berigu Aregawi (Ethiopia) from the wall recovering to take silver from Grant Fisher (US) by 0.02 seconds, Fisher's second bronze of the Games.

The marathon race saw all three medalists from the previous Olympics return, including two-time gold medalist Eliud Kipchoge (Kenya) who was after his third gold. The hilly sections in the latter half of the marathon was where most of the race changes took place, with Tamirat Tola (Ethiopia) keeping the lead from around the 28K mark to finish with a new Olympic Record. Bashir Abdi (Belgium) took the silver (repeating his Tokyo Olympic performance), followed by Benson Kipruto (Kenya) in bronze position.