Men 1500 metres Final
After a great women’s 1500, the men could do no less than also put on a great show, and so they did.
After an initial false start, the race got off cleanly with Germany’s Toni Mohr trying to make an initial break before being rapidly reeled in by the pack, with Qatar’s Abdulrahman Suleiman taking the leaders past 400 metres in 1:00.09,
With the race settling down, the two Kenyan representative, Isaac Songok and Samson Kilpangat steeped up into the lead, where Isaac stayed until just before the bell, taking the field through 800 metres (2:03.60) and pushing up the pace to 1200 metres (3.00.57) with a penultimate lap of 56.97.
As they went through the bell, the race turned into a sprint as Suleiman came back and sprinted away with Songkok, Nwera and New Zealand’s Nick Willis in hot pursuit.
The pace proved too fast for Songok and he gradually fell back as Suleiman and Nwera came together out of the final curve and into the home straight, but in a dramatic move, with the two running side by side, Morocco’s Yassine Bensghir, who had been biding his time behind the leaders, kicked hard and pulled between the two to take the lead and hold it to the line which he crossed in a personal best time of 3:40.72.
Suleiman won the race for silver in 3:41.72, with Nwera taking bronze for Tanzania in 3:41.75.
