Kenya’s Paul Kipngetich Tanui won silver with a season-best 27:05.64, while Ethiopia’s Tamirat Tola won bronze in 27:06.26.
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Britain’s Mo Farah overcame the shock of a mid-race fall on Saturday to take a second straight Olympic 10,000m title and extend his remarkable record at global championships.
“I promised my daughter Rhianna I was going to get her a medal and I was thinking “I can’t let her down”.
“I’m excited I get another shot to go out there and represent the United States of America”, he said, “and have another chance to race”.
“These are stressful events at times for that exact same scenario – you saw big names go out of the qualification yet again – I was very almost close to being one of them”. I just have to spend some time with my family and relax. For his part, Rupp mostly stuck right with Farah, and I believe I even detected some coordinating gestures between the two.
Farah became the sixth man to win two Olympic 10,000m gold medals.
“I think I am more of a guy that wins medals rather than run fast times”.
With 300 metres to go Tanui pressed the accelerator in a bid to neutralise the Briton’s renowned finishing speed, but Farah was not done and powered past the Kenyan before holding on to win by 0.47secs.
The 33-year-old went into the race as the overwhelming favourite and looked supremely confident having not been beaten at a major competition in the distance since the 2011 World Championships.
Jeff Henderson of the US overtook Luvo Manyonga of South Africa on his last jump to win the Olympic long jump gold medal Saturday. American Tori Bowie lunged at the line for 10.83 and beat Fraser-Pryce by 0.03 seconds. “I’ve got a target on my back”, said Farah, who was born in war-torm Somalia before moving to neighbouring Djibouti and then Britain at the age of eight.
“I came in here knowing it would be hard to do both, but I wanted to give it a shot”, he said.
Kenyan coach Julius Kirwa has already baited Farah, claiming his athletes had been training like an army squadron to finally take on the Brit as a team.
The Ethiopian duo continued to push on, creating a group of five with themselves, Farah, Tenui, and Rupp; the challenge of Kamworor and Muchiri was fading.
He took the lead with one kilometre to go, and usually that means the race is over.
Long jumper Jeff Henderson made his own history Saturday night, becoming the 999th U.S. Olympic gold medalist.
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“I’m not sure it’s about records for Mo, it’s about medals and they are the most important things”.
