10,000 m, men

What to remember

Valencia, October 7, 2020: Joshua Cheptegei ran the 25 laps of a 400 m track in 26 min 11.00 s, an average of 22.915 km/h. Earlier that season, on August 14, the Ugandan from Kapchorwa had broken the 5000 m world record in Monaco. He became the tenth man in history to hold both records at the same time.

The 10,000 m is the longest standard track event. Added to the Olympic programme in 1912, it was ruled by Finnish runners, the "Flying Finns", until the late 1940s, and African athletes came to the fore in the 1960s. It grew out of the six miles (9,656 m) run in English-speaking countries, and women's races joined the Olympic programme in 1988.

Cheptegei won the world title over the distance in Doha in 2019, Eugene in 2022 and Budapest in 2023. At the Paris Games, on August 2, 2024, he took Olympic gold in the 10,000 m in an Olympic record time.