In more than eight minutes, 8: 33,88, winning brand, fans who are watching inside Tokyo have experienced life itself; Spirit, ears, anxiety and experience of visiting dead returns to life.
3000m Steeplechase is a classic track event – 28 barriers or obstacles and seven water jumps. Seven complete rounds, each round is difficult, difficult. The last round, usually punishes a murder sprint to the finish. Last picture: Athletes have grown on the track. Physically exhausted. Some crushed. Several euphorics.
None of this seemed to come. Tokyo Night was again a band, humidity in the 1970s. Moisture loaded air thick with expectations. The ruling world champion of Morocco Soufane El Bakkali won the first of his two Olympic gold medals on this track in 2021. According to all accounts, it was a return home. It is reflected on large screens depicting Bakkali’s face that looked carved out of stone. Two golden world championships under his belt, he shot for his third. The legendary status was slightly sitting on it. His 6’4 frame rises above the rest.
World Athletics Championship: Plan 4. Day
World Athletics Championship: 3000m men of men in action.
Incredibly, Bakkali, always raised the back. The rest took turns on the lead. Over the years, it is a question that is often placed on Morocco, and he shrugged and said, “I like to run in the back.” Maybe it gives him a look at what the rest is. Whatever it is, he returned to the time -tested plan tonight. For those who know Bakkali, familiar with his racing assembly, returned where he dominated the pace. Imagine someone breathing your back, refusing to fall or come to give you a clear look. You never know what Bakkali is planning. Each race may seem to be re -running the past. According to this logic, it is defeatable. His tactics open book. Repeatedly, just like the shadow, he slipped around you in the last round and gave you this space as an invitation to take it from him, and yet he killed you in the last seconds and killed you.
It all pointed out.
Bakkalali settled the first 400 meters. German Fredrick Ruppert and 17 -year -old Kenyan Edmund Serem exchange leadership. To make things a little more interesting, Daniel Michalski and Canadian Jean-Simon Desgagagn moved to the first four best. Japanese ryji Miura, who operated 8: 03,43, the third best time this year in Monaco locked up to 5. If he moved to the 4th, roar at the stadium, he left the people from the safe to relax.
The first kilometer was extremely slow 3: 04,78. Faith Cherotich led 3: 04,90 in the first heat of the preliminary round of the Women’s Steeplechase earlier in the morning.
For uninitiated it were obstacles, water jumps and a lonely tall figure of Moroccan Moroccan, who was held at the back, while those in the middle tried to stay alive. Ruppert and Serem replaced the lead on the front. Lamecha Girma, holder of the Ethiopian world record at 7: 52.11, took his step with his wedge. Girma, despite holding a world record, never beat Bakkali in the Olympic or Championships. In Tokyo 2020 ended with silver and then at three consecutive world championships – 2019 Doha, 2022 Eugene and 2023 Budapest – ended with three silver. Girma was running well, could it be his night in Tokyo?
World Athletics Championship: full coverage
It turned out that 3000m steeplechase men are a fascinating competition. (Courtesy: Reuters)
With two wheels before Girma moved, Bakkali, moved from the outside. The shadow was approaching big. Girma was now at the forefront and took a break. The crowd yelled. They wanted Miuru. The Japanese were locked in the center. There was no way out. Bakkali slipped around him. The canal was closed.
All this, when the leadership was exchanged, with Bakkali in 16. For almost everyone, the eyes were fastened at the back and front. The back of the center was invisible to the crowd.
American Michalski tried to break a group. When two laps left, he set off forward. Three Ethiopians in the plant, Samuel Firew, Lamecha Girma and GetNet Wale chased together with Sere, Ruppett and Desgagnes.
Kiwi stayed back in 15.
Later, Beamish would say, “With 150 meters I found some bright air.
Backstraight was hectic; I avoided and weaving. Over the years I have been in this position several times and I returned to someone else in the world. ”
Bakkali moved into the lead and at the last water jump Beamish placed on 4. Bakkali escaped to the line. You saw Moroccan was tiring. The legs that gave him two Olympic and World Championships wanted to get across the goal. His third gold was there to take over. This acceleration, kick, did not bring killing.
Beamish started sprinting. The crowd went Whacko. The roar could raise the stadium and take it away. Tokyo heard it.
You felt Bakkali hold. Experience, gravel, determination sometimes drives you through the line. When only ten meters left, Beamish appeared on Bakkali’s shoulder. Inside the roar of the stadium, the hope of every fan, anxiety, all intertwined into the only huge wave of noise that rose and fell with every step of the last five meters, every meter unbelievable for Bakkali, the euphorics for Beamish.
Maybe, in the last second, Bakkki looked at the screen, not on his right. At that moment, the hope of the whole nation turned into reality. New Zealand won his first world championship. Bakkali’s dream turned into silver; Difference of 0.07 seconds. Beamish won at 8: 33,38. Bakkali 8: 33,95. Kenius Edmund Serem was third. Girma finished 6th, golden dreams crushed. Miura before his domestic fans was in 8th place. Michalski, who was running for glory, disappeared in the 9th place.
17 -year -old Edmund Serem wins bronze for Kenya at 3000 meters of Steeplechase at the World Championship in Tokyo.
Champion Sofiane El Bakkali stunned Geordie Beameish on the finish line# pic.twitter.com/4P9U13GDSZ– True Men (@dollar__sm) September 15, 2025
Beamish lay on the track and held his head. There was a distrust. Bakkali’s tears flowed and he went 50 meters on the track, hit the side of his head and admonished; Gold donated gold.
“Well, what happened tonight, I didn’t accept this result, but I gave my everything, I did a good race, I did good tactics, and that’s it, I accepted the race, won the silver medal, so I congratulate New Zealand for winning gold medals tonight,” Bakkali said.
Before he came to the mixed zone, he met his family and it torn Morocco again as he sobbed in his arms. Volunteers give Bakkali a chair and a bottle of water to help compose.
Beamish came later and shone from the ear to the ear: “Nothing in this sport is given. I was at the peak of sports a few months before Paris. And I absolutely had a brutal time in Paris. And then a year later we were here. And you just can’t take this sport.”
Two ends of the spectrum, life – one feeling as if he were caught in the whirlwind of despair, the second peak of the world, the best high he can watch. He won gold and defeated the ruling champion. All within a time frame of 0.07 seconds.
– ends
Published:
Kingshuk Kusari
Published on:
September 16, 2025
