Cole Hocker won the 5000m at the World Track and Field Championships with a kick to follow up his 1500m gold from the Paris Olympics.
Hocker clocked 12:58.30, going from 12th place with a lap left to prevail in his second event of the meet. He was disqualified from the 1500m last week after jostling in his semifinal.
“Coming off how the 1500m went, all those days in between, whatever it was, four or five days, I just isolated myself, surrounded myself with my family and just told myself that I wanted to end this championship on my terms,” Hocker told Lewis Johnson on NBC Sports. “And I prep all year long for this championship, to peak here, and to have one race that I felt like was robbed from me, taken away, it felt really personal, and I took it that way. This (5000m) was it. This was my opportunity.”
Hocker overtook Belgian Isaac Kimeli by 48 hundredths in the last 100 meters. France’s Jimmy Gressier, the 10,000m champion, earned bronze.
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“I was so confident with a lap to go that I was going to get a medal, it was just a matter of which color,” Hocker said.
Hocker is the second American to win a world title in the 5000m after Bernard Lagat in 2007 and the second American to win distance golds at both the Olympics and outdoor worlds in their career after Athing Mu.
Hocker also became the first American to win a medal of any color in a distance race at these worlds, doing so in the last distance event of the meet. The U.S. last went medal-less in distance events at a global outdoor championship (Olympics or worlds) at the 2005 Worlds.
Also Sunday, Olympic silver medalist Leo Neugebauer of Germany won the closest decathlon in World Championships history, holding off Ayden Owens-Delerme of Puerto Rico by 20 points.
American Kyle Garland, the day one leader, took bronze.
Lilian Odira overtook Olympic gold medalist Keely Hodgkinson of Great Britain in the final straight to win the 800m and give Kenya a sweep of the six women’s distance-running golds at these worlds.
Odira, 26, was eliminated in the 2024 Olympic semifinals after sitting out competition from 2020-23 to have two sons.
World Championships highlights air Sunday at 12 p.m. ET on NBC and Peacock.
The fall marathon season continues Oct. 12 with the Chicago Marathon, airing live on NBC Chicago and nbcchicago.com.
The field features the second- and fourth-fastest American marathoners in history — Conner Mantz and Galen Rupp.
