Watch: Eastern WA runner wins Olympic silver. He’s 9th American ever to medal in the event
Kenneth Rooks admitted after his race in the men’s 3,000-meter steeplechase that he was nervous about where he positioned himself during the race.
But it all worked out, as Rooks placed second in the final to earn a silver medal at the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics on Wednesday night.
“My goal was to get out and stay relaxed,” said Rooks in the post-race press conference. “If the race went out fast, I was gonna be OK to begin in the back. I wanted to stay within striking distance.”
He was, and he was in the back of the pack as the race progressed.
After the first 1,000 meters, he sat in 12th place with a time of 2 minutes and 42.8 seconds.
At the 2,000-meters point, Rooks was still in ninth place at 5:30.6.
Even with two laps remaining, the 24-year-old sat in 10th place.
“I was nervous when I positioned myself. But we all stayed within striking distance of each other,” Rooks told the reporters.
Indeed.
The good news with all of this was that everyone was still bunched together and it was anyone’s race.
“The goal,” Rooks added, “was to save as much energy as possible at the beginning of the race.”
And when the pack crossed the start-finish line, with a bell ringing to notify everyone it was the final lap, Rooks started using the energy he had been conserving.
He sprinted into the lead and started to pull away — surprising the leaders as to who had made the move.
As Rooks — ranked 24th in the world in this event entering the Olympics — cleared the final water jump, some of the leaders responded.
Morocco’s Soufiane El Bakkali — with his 6-foot-5 frame carrying his long strides — found a way down the final stretch to take the lead from Rooks.
El Bakkali won the gold medal and finished in a time of 8:06.05, repeating his 2022 Tokyo win.
Meanwhile, Ethiopia’s Lamecha Girma — who set the world record time of 7:52.11 in a race last year in Paris and won silver in Tokyo — was starting to make his move to the front when he stumbled over the last hurdle. He fell and landed on his stomach and head, and had to be taken from the stadium in a stretcher.
Kenya’s Abraham Kibiwot started to also pass Rooks on the final stretch. But the former BYU star out-leaned Kibiwot at the finish line to take second place.
Rooks finished in 8 minutes and 6.41 seconds for the silver medal, while Kibiwot earned the bronze with a time of 8:06.47.
So all three top placers finished within 42/100ths of a second of each other.
For Rooks, the time was a personal best for him, beating his previous best of 8:15.08.
This story was originally published August 7, 2024 at 5:50 PM.