Gutsy Kenneth Rooks Goes for Gold, Wins Silver in Olympic Steeplechase Final

PARIS – You’ve got to believe.

24-year-old American Kenneth Rooks certainly did.

In one of the most inspiring runs in American distance running history, Rooks, the 15th out of 16 seeds in the 2024 Paris Olympic men’s steeplechase final, nearly won the gold medal.  

The history books will always show that Morocco’s Soufiane El Bakkali was the repeat winner of the men’s Olympic steeplechase thanks to a 57.5 last lap to win his fourth straight global title in 8:06:05. But it was Rooks who stole the hearts of American distance fans with a race legends are made of that resulted in him winning the silver in a personal best of 8:06.41.

Rooks took the lead just after the bell and would extend it on the backstretch, powering away from the best steeplechasers in the world including El Bakkali and his perpetual bridesmaid, world record holder Lamecha Girma of Ethiopia. 

After accelerating rapidly to catch Rooks, Girma caught his trail leg on a barrier with just over 200 meters to go and slammed violently to the track, a fall that would end his race. Girma appeared to have been instantly knocked unconscious and  had to be stretchered off and eventually taken to the hospital.

Rooks, meanwhile, still had the lead over the final water jump as the race for gold and the medals was now between Rooks, El Bakkali and the Worlds bronze medalist Abraham Kibiwot of Kenya.

El Bakkali summoned his patented kick and passed Rooks as they entered the homestretch and was able to stay in the front to the finish during a furious final 100. Kibiwott came up to Rooks after the final barrier, but Rooks was frantically pushing for the finish and got to the line to take silver in a huge personal best of 8:06.41 with Kibiwot settling for bronze in 8:06.47.

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The 2nd km lagged, setting up a furious finish

Initially it looked like Ethiopian team tactics would result in a fast pace as the two Ethiopians not named Lamecha Girma – perennial 4th placer Getnet Wale and 2022 world junior silver medallist Samuel Firewu — alternated leading early with the first km an honest 2:40.53 (8:00 pace). (It’s also worth noting Abrham Sime, who exactly one month ago became the world #2 by running 8:02.36 to win the Paris DL, wasn’t named to their Ethiopian team). But the pace lagged a lot in the 2nd km, which was run in just 2:49.84 (5:30.27). The pace picked up marginally on the penultimate lap as the pace dropped from 67 to 64, but it was a crazy look at the bell as 13 of the 16 competitors were within two seconds of the lead.

And Rooks, who ran the first half or the race towards the back and then was mid-pack, was making a charge. 9th with 1.5 laps to go, he’d moved up to 4th at the bell and soon had his bid for glory.

2024 Olympic steeplechase men’s results

Soufiane El Bakkali is putting himself among the greatest steeplers of all time

El Bakkali, who early in his career was known as the guy who would finish just behind Conseslus Kipruto on the podium, is now an unstoppable winning machine. El Bakkali is the first man since Finland’s Volmari Iso-Hollo in 1932 and 1936 to win back-to-back Olympic steeple titles (Ezekiel Kemboi won two, but not consecutively, in 2004 and 2012) and has won four straight global titles in all. Along with Mondo Duplantis and Ryan Crouser, he is one of two male athletes who have won four titles in four years since this unprecedented run of five straight global championships began in 2021.

The one thing holding El Bakkali back in the discussion of the steeple GOAT is his pb of 7:56.68, which only ranks #9 all-time. But El Bakkali rarely chases times. He just doesn’t lose. He hasn’t been beaten in a steeple since September 2021 and has not lost to the other great steepler of this generation, the world record holder Girma, in almost five years. This year there were doubts about El Bakkali given he was injured early in the year and raced just once before the Olympics, but he silenced them all with another gold medal run.

Kenneth Rooks with a remarkable silver

When Rooks said after Monday’s prelims that he was planning on running for gold in the final, we took it with a grain of salt. A lot of runners like to say that, but would Rooks actually go for it if given the opportunity?

We apologize if we doubted you, Kenneth. Rooks had the opportunity and grabbed it with both hands, and while he fell just short of gold, he earned one of the most unlikeliest silver medals in recent US distance running history.

Rooks’ pb entering the race was just 8:15. You do not win an Olympic steeple medal with an 8:15 pb. But Rooks ran that back on May 11 in a race he won by 8 seconds, he dominated the Olympic Trials, and he still has never run a Diamond League. This is a guy who won USAs in 8:16 last year while falling. Clearly, he was in much better than 8:15 shape. But 8:06? In the Olympic final? Leading off the final water jump? No one saw this coming (except for his coach Ed Eyestone, who said he told Kenneth he was an 8:05 guy before the race). It was a gutsy run reminiscent of Courtney Frerichs’ bid for glory in Tokyo three years ago, and just like Frerichs, Rooks earned a well-deserved silver medal.

When Evan Jager medalled at the Olympics in 2016 – the only other American men’s Olympic steeple medal in the last 40 years – he was 27 years old and had been anointed as the future of American steepling since 2012. He headed to Rio as an 8:00 guy who had been one of the best steeplers on the DL circuit for years. Barely anyone knew who Kenneth Rooks was 18 months ago. Now he’s the second-fastest American steepler ever, a silver medalist, and still only 24 years old.

Even Rooks could not quite believe what was happening.

“I was like, Man, I’m in the lead at the Olympics,” Rooks said. “I might actually get a gold medal here. This is crazy.”

Rooks followed coach Ed Eyestone’s plan to a T

BYU coach Ed Eyestone has won pretty much every title there is to win in the NCAA at some point or another, and he has had a big year already, putting two marathon men and two steeple men on the Olympic team. But he had never coached an Olympic medalist before tonight.

Before the race, Eyestone told Rooks not to run any faster than 64-second laps in the earlygoing. Rooks draws a lot of inspiration from nine-time US steeple champion (and BYU alum) Henry Marsh, who often ran from behind, and channeled him again on Wednesday.

“The biggest thing was just to try and be as efficient as we could on the barriers, to be as conservative as possible, as relaxed as possible,” Rooks said. “That way at the end, I could kick hard.”

Rooks stuck to that plan, but when the race went out on 8:00 pace, Eyestone began to question himself. He was in last place at 1600 meters.

“I was going, Oh, maybe this wasn’t the right call because look how fast they’re going,” Eyestone said.

Turns out, they had pegged the race correctly. Rooks hung back until it was time to move (kind of like how Cole Hocker stayed back during the first 300m last night), used the penultimate lap to move up, then attacked hard early in the first lap. At that point, Eyestone said, he “about collapsed” watching Rooks take the lead, but he knew Rooks typically has a strong kick.

“He’s closed in sub-60 before,” Eyestone said. “That’s what he likes to do.”

Tonight, Rooks was 57.3 for his last lap (59.7 final 400).

How did Rooks medal? He ran incredibly but it helped that some key players were missing

Rooks ran a brilliant race tonight but we should acknowledge that some notable athletes could not make it to the start/finish line tonight. Obviously Girma fell with 200 to go. Safely navigating the barriers is part of the challenge of course, but most of the time when you wipe out on the last lap, it’s because you are tired. Girma was actually speeding up but was accelerating so wildly that he lost control on the barrier.

Girma’s countryman Abrham Sime, who won the Paris DL a month ago and has the #2 time in the world this year, was not named to the Ethiopian team. And Geordie Beamish, who has one of the best kicks in the game, was injured for the last two months and failed to make the final.

That being said, the guy who ran the same time as Sime at the Paris DL, Kenya’s Amos Serem, the 2021 world junior champ, was only 14th tonight.