Cole Hocker Breaks Olympic Record in Men's 1500-Meter Final for Gold as Yared Nuguse Wins Bronze

Mar. 15, 2025

Yared Nuguse and Cole Hocker celebrate their wins at the Paris Olympics.Photo:Sven Hoppe/picture alliance via Getty Images

Sven Hoppe/picture alliance via Getty Images

In a dramatic come-from-behind victory, Team USA runner Cole Hocker broke the men’s 1500-meterOlympicrecord, while his teammate Yared Nuguse snagged a third-place finish in the final seconds of the race.

Josh Kerr of Team Great Britain came in second place with a time of 3:27.79, while Nuguse, 25, rounded out the podium in third with a time of 3:27.80.

American Hobbs Kessler came in fifth, while the previous Olympic record holder Ingebrigtsen just missed out on a medal with fourth place.

“I’m super proud, I’m super happy. I’m gonna try processing these feelings at a later date,” Kessler, who admitted it was difficult knowing a medal was within reach, told reporters, including PEOPLE, after the race. “It made for an amazing race, one for history. I’m super proud to be part of it.”

Nuguse was excited about his medal finish: “I’m just so happy to come away with bronze,” he told the press at Stade de France. “I feel like at that last 200[-meters] I was like . . . ‘It’s right in front of me and that was really just a moment of, you know, digging down really deep and just getting it done.’ "

Hocker’s new hardware marks the 13th medal (and fourth gold) for Team USA’s track and field athletes.

Yared Nuguse, Josh Kerr, Cole Hocker and Jakob Ingebrigtsen on Aug. 6 at the Paris Olympics.Michael Steele/Getty Images

Michael Steele/Getty Images

So far, they’ve taken home the win in themen’s 100-meter(Noah Lyles), themen’s shot put(Ryan Crouser) and the women’s discus throw (Valarie Allman).

They’ve also won four silver medals, including Sha’carri Richardson in the women’s 100-meter, and four bronze medals.

The win marks the realization of a relatively new dream for Nuguse, who told PEOPLE in June that the first Olympics he watched was Tokyo, as he “didn’t really care for sports” as a child.

Though he was on the bowling team in high school, it took some persuading to get him to pursue running professionally.

“Even when I got into it in high school, that was 2014, I still didn’t care enough to watch the 2016 Olympics or thinking I’d be doing it in college or past college,” he said. “So yeah, I’ve always had a unique relationship with running, for sure.”

source: people.com