Paris Olympics 2024: A Gold Medal For Kenya's Smiling Assassin.

Kenya's Beatrice Chebet, nicknamed "the smiling assassin" bagged a gold medal in the Olympic women's 5,000m on Monday to end defending champion Sifan Hassan's dream of a long-distance treble.

Chebet waited patiently during the race and in the final stretch, sped past her fellow Kenyan, Faith Kipyegon, to finish first in 14 minutes,28.56 seconds, at the Stade de France.

Kipyegon was ahead of Chebet in the last stretch but couldn’t match Chebet’s final push. Chebet said she planned to follow Kipyegon and then make her move if she felt strong. At 400 meters to go, she felt good and pushed hard to secure the win.

I knew Faith is very strong so I had to go hard from 400 metres out. When she pushed, I thought, Let me follow her and see if I can secure second. If I followed Faith, I thought I would get the silver.Then at 400 metres to go I felt strong, so I pushed, then kicked again at 300 metres. Luckily I was able to win.  Chebet said.

Kipyegon, who is the current world champion for the 5,000m, came second but was disqualified from the silver medal for allegedly pushing an opponent, Gudaf Tsegay from Ethiopia. But after an appeal by Kenyan officials, she was reinstated and was given the silver medal.

With Kipyegon’s reinstatement, Dutch runner Hassan was moved from silver to bronze, finishing in 14 minutes 30.61 seconds. Hassan, who is 31, had hoped to become the first woman to win 5,000m, 10,000m and marathon gold at the same Olympics, following in the footsteps of the great Emile Zatopek from the 1952 Helsinki Games. Unfortunately for Hassan, her usual strategy of staying behind for most of the race didn’t work this time. She couldn’t keep up with the speed of Chebet and Kipyegon in the final laps.

This win by Beatrice Chebet is a highlight of her season. She had already set a world record in the 10,000m earlier this year in Eugene, Oregon. She will now aim to win the 10,000m race which will take place on Friday.