2000 Summer Olympics / Athletics - 3000 m obstacle (men)

sport	athletics
discipline	3000 meter obstacle course
gender	Men
Attendees	40 athletes from 29 countries
Competition location	Stadium Australia
Competition phase	September 27, 2000 (preliminary round) September 29, 2000 (final)
Medalist Reuben Kosgei ( KEN )   Wilson Boit Kipketer ( KEN )   Ali Ezzine ( MAR )

The men's 3000 meter obstacle course at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney was held on September 27 and 29, 2000 at Stadium Australia . Forty athletes took part.

The Kenyan Reuben Kosgei became Olympic champion . He won ahead of his compatriot Wilson Boit Kipketer and the Moroccan Ali Ezzine .

While the Swiss Christian Belz was eliminated in the preliminary run, the German Damian Kallabis and the Austrian Günther Weidlinger reached the final. Weidlinger came eighth, Kallabis crossed the finish line in fifteenth.

Athletes from Liechtenstein did not take part.

Current title holders

Olympic champion 1996	Joseph Keter ( Kenya )	8:07:12 min	Atlanta 1996
World Champion 1999	Christopher Koskei ( Kenya )	8: 11.76 min	Seville 1999
European champion 1998	Damian Kallabis ( Germany )	8: 13.10 min	Budapest 1998
Pan American Champion 1999	Joël Bourgeois ( Canada )	8: 35.03 min	Winnipeg 1999
Central America and Caribbean champions 1999	Salvador Miranda ( Mexico )	8: 42.45 min	Bridgetown 1999
South American Champion 1999	Pablo Ramírez ( Ecuador )	9: 11.21 min	Bogotá 1999
Asian champion 2000	Khamis Abdullah Saifeldin ( Qatar )	8: 47.33 min	Jakarta 2000
African Champion 2000	Lofti Turki ( Tunisia )	8: 33.29 min	Algiers 2000
Oceania Champion 2000	Primo Higa ( Solomon Islands )	9: 58.06 min	Adelaide 2000

Existing records

World record	7: 55.72 min	Bernard Barmasai ( Kenya )	Cologne , Germany	August 27, 1997
Olympic record	8: 05.51 min	Julius Kariuki ( Kenya )	Final from Seoul , South Korea	September 30, 1988

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

Preliminary round

A total of three preliminary runs were completed. The first four athletes of each run qualified for the final. In addition, the three 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

The Frenchman Bouabdellah Tahri was eliminated as sixth of his heat

September 27, 2000, 11:55 a.m.

space	Surname	nation	Time (min)	annotation
1	Reuben Kosgei	Kenya	8: 23.17
2	Ali Ezzine	Morocco	8: 23.79
3	Günther Weidlinger	Austria	8: 24.07
4th	Eliseo Martín	Spain	8: 24.97
5	Mark Croghan	United States	8: 25.88
6th	Bouabdellah Tahri	France	8: 34.69
7th	Maru Daba	Ethiopia	8: 35.34
8th	Florin Ionescu	Romania	8: 37.44
9	Sergi Redko	Ukraine	8: 40.51
10	Christian Stephenson	Great Britain	8: 46.66
11	Mourad Benslimani	Algeria	8: 59.07
12	Christopher Unthank	Australia	9: 11.19
13	Primo Higa	Solomon Islands	9: 44.12

Forward 2

September 27, 2000, 12:08 p.m.

space	Surname	nation	Time (min)	annotation
1	Bernard Barmasai	Kenya	8: 23.08
2	Jim Svenøy	Norway	8: 23.61
3	Khamis Abdullah Saifeldin	Qatar	8: 23.94
4th	Luis Miguel Martín	Spain	8: 24.04
5	Damian Kallabis	Germany	8: 24.48
6th	Gaël Pencreach	France	8: 25.35
7th	Joël Bourgeois	Canada	8: 28.07
8th	Christian Belz	Switzerland	8: 33.45
9	Rafał Wójcik	Poland	8: 33.51
10	Anthony Cosey	United States	8: 35.25
11	El Arbi Khattabi	Morocco	8: 43.46
12	Georgios Giannelis	Greece	9: 19.14
DNF	Stathis Stasi	Cyprus

Forward 3

Eduardo Buenavista from the Philippines was eliminated in fourteenth of his preliminary run

September 27, 2000, 12:21 p.m.

space	Surname	nation	Time (min)	annotation
1	Laid Bessou	Algeria	8: 21.14
2	Wilson Boit Kipketer	Kenya	8: 22.07
3	Simon Vroemen	Netherlands	8: 22.13
4th	Brahim Boulami	Morocco	8: 24.43
5	Manuel Silva	Portugal	8: 25.70
6th	Pascal Dobert	United States	8: 29.52
7th	Justin Chaston	Great Britain	8: 31.01
8th	Lofti Turki	Tunisia	8: 34.84
9	Salvador Miranda	Mexico	8: 35.79
10	Marco Cepeda	Spain	8: 40.01
11	Iaroslav Muşinschi	Moldova	8: 42.04
12	Giuseppe Maffei	Italy	8: 48.88
13	Vladimir Pronin	Russia	8: 57.69
14th	Eduardo Buenavista	Philippines	9: 13.71

final

space	Surname	nation	Time (min)	annotation
1	Reuben Kosgei	Kenya	8: 21.43
2	Wilson Boit Kipketer	Kenya	8: 21.77
3	Ali Ezzine	Morocco	8: 22.15
4th	Bernard Barmasai	Kenya	8: 22.23
5	Luis Miguel Martín	Spain	8: 22.75
6th	Eliseo Martín	Spain	8: 23.00
7th	Brahim Boulami	Morocco	8: 24.32
8th	Günther Weidlinger	Austria	8: 26.70
9	Jim Svenøy	Norway	8: 27.20
10	Khamis Abdullah Saifeldin	Qatar	8: 30.89
11	Laid Bessou	Algeria	8: 33.07
12	Simon Vroemen	Netherlands	8: 37.87
13	Manuel Silva	Portugal	8: 38.63
14th	Gaël Pencreach	France	8: 41.19
15th	Damian Kallabis	Germany	9: 09.78

September 29, 2000, 7:25 pm

All three Kenyans as well as two Moroccans and two Spaniards had qualified for the final. The starting field was completed by one participant each from Algeria, Germany, France, Qatar, the Netherlands, Norway, Austria and Portugal.

The favorites were the Kenyans, who had been setting the tone on this route for years. In particular, vice world champion Wilson Boit Kipketer and world record holder Bernard Barmasai were given the greatest chances of winning the Olympic gold, but Reuben Kosgei was also to be expected. A medal candidate was also the World Cup third Ali Ezzine from Morocco.

In the final race there was an incident right at the beginning. The German European champion Damian Kallabis hit the first obstacle and fell. He was able to continue, but was now running behind the field and ended up being fifteenth and last in this final by a clear margin.

The three Kenyans initially controlled the race. After a lap and a half, the Moroccan Ali Ezzine took the lead. The Spaniard Luis Miguel Martín and the Dutchman Simon Vroemen now finished second and third. After another one and a half laps Kosgei, Kipketer and with them the Austrian Günther Weidlinger replaced the leaders. The pace was not particularly fast, the first thousand meters were covered in 2: 55.85 minutes. Then it got a little faster, the time for the second 1000 meter section was 2: 48.06 minutes.

In the penultimate lap the Spaniard Eliseo Martín tried an attack, but was intercepted by Kosgei and Martín came back into the field. At the beginning of the last lap, the Kenyans moved forward as one, closely followed by Ezzine. Another attack followed on the back straight, this time from Luis Miguel Martín. However, he could not move away, he was level with Kosgei at the moat. Kipketer and Barmasai followed directly behind them. On the home stretch, Martín ran out of strength and fell significantly behind. At the last obstacle, Kipketer pushed himself into the leading position. However, there was contact with Kosgei, which threw Kipketer off balance. Reuben Kosgei was now able to break away decisively and win the race. Wilson Boit Kipketer was second ahead of Ali Ezzine, who over-sprinted Bernard Barmasai and prevented the Kenyans from achieving complete success. Fifth and sixth were the two Spaniards Luis Miguel Martín and Eliseo Martín.

Reuben Kosgei became the seventh Kenyan Olympic champion over 3000 meters obstacle . It was the fifth success in a row for Kenya in this discipline, at the same time the fourth double success in a row.

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  The Austrian Günther Weidlinger finished eighth in the final

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  The Olympic contestant Jim Svenøy from Norway

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  The Dutchman Simon Vroemen finished twelfth in the Olympic Games

Web links

• SportsReference 3000 m obstacle , accessed March 21, 2018
• Results on the IAAF website , accessed on March 21, 2018
• Official Report of the XXVIIth Olympiad, Results , English / French (PDF, 17,708 MB), accessed on March 21, 2018

Video

• 2000 Sydney olympics , 3000 meter obstacle, published November 23, 2016 on youtube.com, accessed March 21, 2018

Individual evidence

1. ↑ IAAF Statistics Handbook, Beijing 2015, page 674 , accessed on March 21, 2018