#2016 rio olympics
Even the fourth-place finisher would have won gold in August.
The men’s 1500m final at the Olympic Games this year was weird. It’s normal in middle-distance running for runners to hold back at the beginning of the race, keeping pace with the pack while saving their energy for a sprint towards the end. But for some reason that really got taken to the extreme in the final. As a point of comparison, 40 athletes competed in the first round of heats for the 1500m (excluding 3 who didn’t start, didn’t finish, or were disqualified). The gold-medal winning time of 3:50.00 would have come in 35th out of 40 in the heats. It was the slowest gold-medal time in the event since 1932, and a full 24 seconds off the world-record pace.
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