Paris • Keep in mind that time Kenneth Rooks tumbled over the barrier on the 2023 nationwide championships and roared again from 30 meters behind to assert the lads’s steeplechase title?
That hardly registers as an effort in comparison with Rooks’ silver-medal heroics Wednesday night time on the Olympic stage at Paris’ Stade de France.
Rooks, one in all seven BYU runners competing in Paris, spent the primary two-thirds of the three,000-meter males’s steeplechase race in the back of the pack. He was so removed from the leaders that even on a large pan, the TV cameras couldn’t decide him up. These leaders, by the best way, included defending gold medalist Soufiane El Bakkali of Morocco and a contingent from Kenya, which had gained all however three Olympic gold medals in males’s steeplechase since 1968.
The USA, then again, had garnered simply two medals in 40 years previous to Rooks’ silver efficiency. Brian Diemer took bronze in 1984 and Evan Jager claimed silver in 2016.
But when the bell sounded for the ultimate lap, to the shock of the leaders, there was Rooks, charging into the lead.
(Ashley Landis | AP) Kenneth Rooks, of america, clears an impediment through the males’s 3000 meters steeplechase last, on the 2024 Summer season Olympics, Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024, in Saint-Denis, France.
“I need to admit my focus was on El Bakkali and [Ethiopian world record holder Lamecha] Girma. I didn’t assume a lot about Kenneth,” mentioned bronze medalist Kibiwot Abraham. “That was a shock.”
Maybe the one folks not shocked by Rooks’ look on the entrance of the pack had been Rooks and his coach, Ed Eyestone.
“My aim was to preserve as a lot vitality as doable and keep inside putting distance,” Rooks mentioned. “I used to be nervous, particularly with the place I positioned myself. However we had been all in it, particularly because the race bought later.”
Eyestone, the top of BYU’s males’s monitor and cross nation program, admitted that for the primary three laps, he wasn’t so certain the race plan they’d made was a prudent one.
“Whenever you see the whole pack and also you see your athlete, with what could also be their solely shot on the Olympics, deliberately sort of holding again,” Eyestone mentioned. ” You then sort of marvel in case you’ve reined him in somewhat an excessive amount of.”
(Ed Eyestone) BYU monitor coach Ed Eyestone, left, celebrates a silver-medal efficiency with former Cougar Kenneth Rooks, who shocked many in Wednesday’s steeplechase in Paris, France.
Slowly, certainly, although Rooks began to choose off different runners, typically passing them two- to three-deep on a nook. He remained as deep as eighth within the 15-man race as they splashed down via the water function close to the tip of the penultimate lap. Then, because the bell sounded, he dashed — no, “bolted,” as Eyestone would put it — to the entrance.
“That’s what bought us all excited, as a result of not solely did he take the lead, he gapped the sphere momentarily,” Eyestone mentioned. “And that was when the adrenaline was actually pumping. Coach’s coronary heart is admittedly racing, and [Rooks] is flying down that again stretch.”
The tall, lithe El Bakkali overtook Rooks on the ultimate barrier. But Rooks, his face wrought with dedication, fought off a problem from Abraham within the closing meters to clinch the silver. He shaved 9 seconds off his personal-best time from Might to complete in 8 minutes, 6.41 seconds. That point would have overwhelmed El Bakkali (8:06.05) for the gold in Tokyo, the place he ran 8:08.9.
(Natacha Pisarenko | AP) Soufiane El Bakkali, of Morocco, proper, Kenneth Rooks, of america, middle, and Abraham Kibiwot, of Kenya, competes within the males’s 3000-meters steeplechase last on the 2024 Summer season Olympics, Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024, in Saint-Denis, France.
“The Olympic Video games is the largest competitors on the map,” Eyestone mentioned, “and he got here inside .4 seconds of successful it.”
Girma, the world document holder, may need additionally challenged for the gold if he hadn’t fallen amidst the jostling that was occurring as athletes ready to leap the ultimate barrier. He was taken off the monitor on a stretcher. No additional replace on his well being was out there.
“It’s unreal, a dream,” Rooks mentioned. “It’s been superior to take all of it in.”
Park Metropolis resident Grant Fisher kicked off monitor and discipline on the Paris Olympics with a uncommon medal within the males’s 10,000 meters. That plus Rooks’ medal would possibly show to be good springboards for Conner Mantz and Clayton Younger. The 2 former BYU teammates will symbolize the USA in Saturday’s marathon alongside one other BYU alum, Rory Linkletter.
Two different former Cougars, Courtney Wayment within the 3,000 steeplechase and Whittni Orton Morgan within the ladies’s 5,000 have additionally been on the purple monitor, and each reached the ultimate. BYU sophomore James Corrigan additionally raced this week within the males’s 3,000 steeplechase however didn’t make it out of opening heats.
