The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Results of athletics women’s 3,000m steeplechase final at Paris 2024
- Winfred Yavi, Bahrain, 8:52.76 OR 🥇
- Peruth Chemutai, Uganda, 8:53.34 NR 🥈
- Faith Cherotich, Kenya, 8:55.15 PB 🥉
- Alice Finot, France, 8:58.67 AR
PARIS, FRANCE | Xinhua & IAAF | Uganda’s Peruth Chemutai took the 3,000m steeplechase silver medal on Tuesday night in the Paris Games, in a race won by Bahrain’s Winfred Yavi in an Olympic record.
Running 8:52.76, the 24-year-old smashed an Olympic record (8:58.81) that had been set when the discipline made its Games debut for women at the Beijing 2008 Olympics, denying Uganda’s Peruth Chemutai a second consecutive Olympic victory.
Chemutai held on to secure silver this time in a national record of 8:53.34, while Kenya’s Faith Cherotich got bronze in a PB of 8:55.15 – a second global senior medal for the 20-year-old after her bronze at the World Championships in Budapest last year.
“This is a dream come true. It has been such a hard journey to get to this point,” said Winfred, who is also the reigning world champion. “I am so happy for me but also for the Bahraini people and the federation who have been so supportive of me since I started working with them.”
Winfred admitted that she was quite confident of claiming the gold medal before the race, “In the final I was expecting something good. I just felt good about the race. I believed in myself that I have that finishing speed.”
It was Kenya’s world record-holder Beatrice Chepkoech who took control of the race early on and it was fast from the start as she led from Chemutai, Cherotich, Ethiopia’s Sembo Almayew and Yavi, hitting the first kilometre mark in 2:55.1. Finot was a couple of seconds back, with the field strung out.
Almayew moved up with four laps to go and applied some pressure, with a breakaway group of five – Chepkoech, Chemutai, Almayew, Cherotich and Yavi – soon forming.
Chemutai was to the fore with three laps remaining and that’s where she stayed, until the home straight. At the bell she led from Chepkoech and Yavi but the world record-holder couldn’t hold on and Cherotich passed her Kenyan teammate down the back straight.
As Chemutai gritted her teeth, hoping to become the first two-time Olympic champion in the discipline, she was passed by Yavi and settled for silver as her rival ran away with the gold. â–
