Cole Hocker said he was going to Paris to win gold.
That’s exactly what the Blacksburg resident did Tuesday.
Hocker stunned the track and field world by defeating 2021 Olympic champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen and 2023 world champion Josh Kerr to win the men’s 1,500-meter run in the 2024 Olympic Summer Games. His winning time was an Olympic record.
Hocker, an Indiana native and former NCAA champion at the University of Oregon, moved to Blacksburg last fall to reunite with Virginia Tech track and field coach Ben Thomas and train in the New River Valley.
The move paid off handsomely.
Hocker used a powerful finishing kick to finish in a personal-best 3 minutes, 27.65 seconds with Great Britain’s Kerr in second place at 3:27.79. The Olympic record had been 3:28.32, set by Ingebrigtsen at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. The world record is 3:26.00, set in 1998 by Moroccan runner Hicham El Guerrouj at a non-Olympic race in Rome.
Louisville, Kentucky, native Yared Nuguse took the bronze medal for the United States in 3:27.79 with Ingebrigtsen fourth at 3:28.24. Hobbs Kessler of Ann Arbor, Michigan, gave the USA three finishers in the top five by placing fifth in 3:29.45.
The three Americans ran in single file for much of the race, with Kessler in fifth place, Nuguse sixth and Hocker seventh as Ingebrigtsen set a quick pace, followed by Kerr and Kenya’s Brian Komen.
The 23-year-old Hocker made his move on the final lap, passing Nuguse and Kenya’s Timothy Cheruiyot on the outside to move into third place. Hocker grabbed the inside position before he was cut off by Ingebrigtsen. Undaunted, Hocker passed Kerr and Ingebrigtsen on the inside anyway in his red, white and blue uniform to hit the tape first.
Hocker was making his second try at the 1,500 in the Olympics after finishing sixth in the delayed 2021 Summer Games in Tokyo.
He won the event at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene, Oregon, for the second time in June, setting a Trials record of 3:30.59.