2000 Summer Olympics / Athletics - 10,000 m (men)

sport	athletics
discipline	10,000 meter run
gender	Men
Attendees	34 athletes from 19 countries
Competition location	Stadium Australia
Competition phase	September 22, 2000 (preliminary round) September 25, 2000 (final)
Medalist Haile Gebrselassie ( ETH )   Paul Tergat ( KEN )   Assefa Mezgebu ( ETH )

The men's 10,000-meter run at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney was held on September 22nd and 25th, 2000 at Stadium Australia . 34 athletes took part.

The Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie became Olympic champion . He won ahead of the Kenyan Paul Tergat and the Ethiopian Assefa Mezgebu .

Athletes from Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Liechtenstein did not take part. The German Vice European Champion Dieter Baumann was banned because of a positive doping result and was not allowed to participate.

Current title holders

Olympic champion 1996	Haile Gebrselassie ( Ethiopia )	27: 07.34 min	Atlanta 1996
World Champion 1999		27: 57.27 min	Seville 1999
European champion 1998	António Pinto ( Portugal )	27: 48.62 min	Budapest 1998
Pan American Champion 1999	Elenilson da Silva ( Brazil )	28: 43.50 min	Winnipeg 1999
Central America and Caribbean champions 1999	Juan Díaz ( Venezuela )	31: 06.88 min	Bridgetown 1999
South American Champion 1999	Silvio Guerra ( Ecuador )	30: 30.20 min	Bogotá 1999
Asian champion 2000	Ahmed Ibrahim Warsama ( Qatar )	29: 53.00 min	Jakarta 2000
African Champion 2000	Abraha Hadush ( Ethiopia )	28: 40.51 min	Algiers 2000
Oceania Champion 2000	Brent Butler ( Guam )	32: 36.39 min	Adelaide 2000

Existing records

World record	26: 22.75 min	Haile Gebrselassie ( Ethiopia )	Hengelo , Netherlands	June 1, 1998
Olympic record	27: 07.34 min		Atlanta Final , USA	July 29, 1996

Note: All times are local Sydney time ( UTC + 10 ).

Preliminary round

A total of two preliminary runs were completed. The first eight athletes per run qualified for the final. In addition, the four fastest times, the so-called lucky losers , made it through. The directly qualified runners are highlighted in light blue, the lucky losers in light green.

Forward 1

September 22, 2000, 9:30 p.m.

space	Surname	nation	Time (min)	annotation
1	Haile Gebrselassie	Ethiopia	27: 50.01
2	Patrick Ivuti	Kenya	27: 50.10
3	John Korir	Kenya	27: 50.19
4th	Assefa Mezgebu	Ethiopia	27: 50.64
5	Toshinari Takaoka	Japan	27: 59.95
6th	Samir Moussaoui	Algeria	28: 08.22
7th	Abdihakem Abdirahman	United States	28: 09.04
8th	Enrique Molina	Spain	28: 09.76
9	Andres Jones	Great Britain	28: 11.20
10	Armando Quintanilla	Mexico	28: 14.54
11	Sisay Bezabeh	Australia	28: 21.63
12	Sean Kaley	Canada	28: 36.07
13	Robert Denmark	Great Britain	28: 43.74
14th	Shaun Creighton	Australia	28: 52.71
15th	Daniele Caimmi	Italy	29: 01.26
16	Teodoro Cuñado	Spain	29: 10.90
17th	Michael Aish	New Zealand	29: 31.83

Forward 2

The US-American Alan Culpepper was eliminated in seventeenth of his preliminary run

September 22, 2000, 10:05 p.m.

space	Surname	nation	Time (min)	annotation
1	Girma Tolla	Ethiopia	27: 44.01
2	Paul Tergat	Kenya	27: 44.07
3	Katsuhiko Hanada	Japan	27: 45.13
4th	Mohammed Mourhit	Belgium	27: 45.73
5	Saïd Bérioui	Morocco	27: 45.83
6th	Karl Keska	Great Britain	27: 48.29
7th	David Galvan	Mexico	27: 49.53
8th	Aloÿs Nizigama	Burundi	27: 50.09
9	José Ríos	Spain	27: 51.40
10	José Ramos	Portugal	27: 56.30
11	Meb Keflezighi	United States	27: 58.96
12	Rachid Berradi	Italy	28: 01.18
13	Mauricio Díaz	Chile	28: 05.61	NO
14th	Yonas Kifle	Eritrea	28: 08.59	NO
15th	Jeff Schiebler	Canada	28: 30.46
16	Dmitri Maximov	Russia	28: 54.15
17th	Alan Culpepper	United States	29: 00.17

final

September 25, 2000, 10:00 p.m.

Three Ethiopians and three Kenyans had qualified for the final. There were also two US runners, two Japanese and two Spaniards. The starting field was completed by one participant each from Algeria, Belgium, Burundi, Italy, Morocco, Mexico, Portugal and Great Britain.

The favorite was the 1996 Olympic champion , world record holder and reigning world champion Haile Gebrselassie from Ethiopia. The 1996 silver medalist and vice world champion Paul Tergat from Kenya was his strongest competitor. Other medal candidates were primarily Gebrselassies and Tergats compatriots from Ethiopia and Kenya. There was a special rivalry between these two nations regarding the supremacy in the long distances . Ethiopia started the World Cup -Third Assefa Mezgebu and the World Cup -Vierte Girma Tolla, Kenya Patrick Ivuti and John Cheruiyot Korir. Against this superiority, runners from other parts of the world could hardly get anything.

The race was characterized by tactical maneuvers, with the Kenyans and the Ethiopians watching each other. Aloÿs Nizigama from Burundi set the pace in the first half. The first four thousand meters were run very quickly with 1000-meter sections, some of which were well below 2:40 minutes and once just above this mark. Then Nizigama took a pause and it slowed down considerably with a 1000 meter time of just over three minutes. But it did not stop. Ivuti now took the lead and accelerated the pace back to a level as at the beginning of the race. When Nizigama took over from him at the head, things slowed down again. But Korir then ensured a high pace again. With five laps to go, a group of six had formed. The Kenyans Tergat, Ivuti and Korir tried to assert themselves against Gebrselassie and his compatriot Mezgebu. The Moroccan Saïd Bérioui, initially also part of this group, could not keep up the pace and slowly fell behind. Nizigama had to be demolished beforehand. Now it was called three times Kenya and twice Ethiopia. Korir led the group at high speed, followed by Gebrselassie, Tergat, Mezgebu and Ivuti. At the beginning of the last lap, Mezgebu moved one position forward in front of Tergat. The two Ethiopians now ran side by side to block Gebrselassie's main opponent Tergat. But on the back straight, Tergat attacked and took the lead. He now increased the pace, only the two Ethiopians could follow him. There was a smaller gap to Ivuti, while Korir fell significantly behind. Mezgebu also had to tear down the exit from the target curve. Gebrselassie tried everything and he gradually got on a level with Tergat. He had never had to fight for victory like this in recent years. But this time it was enough and Haile Gebrselassie became Olympic champion. So it came to the same finish on the first two places as in 1996 in Atlanta. Paul Tergat won silver ahead of Assefa Mezgebu. The two Kenyans Patrick Ivuti and John Korir followed on the next ranks ahead of Saïd Bérioui. The best runner behind the Africans was the seventh-placed Japanese Toshinari Takaoka. The British Karl Keska finished eighth, and the long-leading Aloÿs Nizigama finished ninth.

Split times
Intermediate mark	Meanwhile	Leading	1000 m time
1000 m	2: 39.52 min	Aloÿs Nizigama	2: 39.52 min
2000 m	5: 23.31 min	Aloÿs Nizigama	2: 34.99 min
3000 m	8: 03.03 min	Aloÿs Nizigama	2: 39.72 min
4000 m	10: 55.47 min	Aloÿs Nizigama	2: 42.44 min
5000 m	13: 55.88 min	Aloÿs Nizigama	3: 00.41 min
6000 m	16: 31.19 min	Patrick Ivuti	2: 35.78 min
7000 m	19: 24.63 min	Aloÿs Nizigama	2: 53.44 min
8000 m	22: 04.46 min	John Korir in a top group of six	2: 39.83 min
9000 m	24: 44.09 min	John Korir in a top group of five	2: 39.63 min
10,000 m	27: 18.20 min	Haile Gebrselassie	2: 34.11 min

space	Surname	nation	Time (min)	annotation
1	Haile Gebrselassie	Ethiopia	27: 18.20
2	Paul Tergat	Kenya	27: 18.29
3	Assefa Mezgebu	Ethiopia	27: 19.75
4th	Patrick Ivuti	Kenya	27: 20.44
5	John Korir	Kenya	27: 24.75
6th	Saïd Bérioui	Morocco	27: 37.83
7th	Toshinari Takaoka	Japan	27: 40.44
8th	Karl Keska	Great Britain	27: 44.09
9	Aloÿs Nizigama	Burundi	27: 44.56
10	Abdihakem Abdirahman	United States	27: 46.17
11	Girma Tolla	Ethiopia	27: 49.75
12	Meb Keflezighi	United States	27: 53.63
13	David Galvan	Mexico	27: 54.56
14th	José Ramos	Portugal	28: 07.43
15th	Katsuhiko Hanada	Japan	28: 08.11
16	Samir Moussaoui	Algeria	28: 17.25
17th	Rachid Berradi	Italy	28: 45.96
18th	José Ríos	Spain	28: 50.31
DNF	Enrique Molina	Spain
	Mohammed Mourhit	Belgium

• 

  Olympic champion
  Haile Gebrselassie, Ethiopia

• 

  Silver medalist
  Paul Tergat from Kenya

• 

  The US-American Abdihakem Abdirahman took tenth place in the final

• 

  The US Olympic twelfth Meb Keflezighi

• 

  The Mexican David Galván was thirteenth in the Olympic Games

literature

• Rudi Cerne (Ed.), Sydney 2000, The Games of the XXVII. Olympiad with contributions by Rudi Cerne, Birgit Fischer , Willi Phillip Knecht , Willi Leissl and Jan Ullrich , MOHN Media Mohndruck GmbH, Gütersloh, p. 70f

Web links

• SportsReference 10,000m , accessed March 20, 2018
• Results on the IAAF website , accessed March 20, 2018
• Official Report of the XXVIIth Olympiad, Results , English / French (PDF, 17,708 MB), accessed on March 20, 2018

Video

• 10,000m Final Men, 2000 - Haile Gebrselassie & Paul Tergat , published February 13, 2012 on youtube.com, accessed March 20, 2018

Individual evidence

1. ↑ doping? - The Dieter Baumann case on sportunterricht.de, accessed on March 20, 2018
2. ↑ IAAF Statistics Handbook, Beijing 2015, page 673 , accessed on March 20, 2018