Best of all time
Uganda's Joshua Cheptegei celebrates with the national flag after winning the men's 5000m final during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at the Olympic Stadium in Tokyo on August 6, 2021. PHOTO/AFP
What you need to know:
- No One Greater. Cheptegei only needed to win an Olympic gold to become the country’s greatest athlete ever. He was a trail of success stretching to his days as junior athletes back in 2014 when he won the 10000m gold in Eugene, USA.
Upon postponement due to the coronavirus, Joshua Cheptegei had to painfully wait for eight days of athletics activity at the Tokyo 2020 Games before becoming an Olympic champion.
He could have bagged 10000m gold as favourite nine days ago but the man from Kapchorwa settled for silver after a tactical mishap offered his Ethiopian foe Selemon Barega the chance to victory.
The wait finally ended after he exuded a powerful final lap to beat a field of 16 men inside the empty National Stadium to take the 5000m gold medal. The medal sealed the legacy for Cheptegei as the best athlete ever of our time.
“I’m honoured to be a world record holder and Olympic champion as well,” Cheptegei said to journalists in Tokyo after his victory on Friday. “After my silver medal for 10000m, I am very happy to take home this golden medal. Great Olympics for Uganda,” he added. This was Uganda’s second gold medal at the Tokyo 2020 Games after Peruth Chemutai’s 3000m steeplechase triumph, and the fourth Olympic title overall. John Akii-Bua’s 400m hurdles win at the 1972 Munich Games and Stephen Kiprotich’s marathon at the London 2012 Games had been the country’s only best moments in Olympic history.
Now Cheptegei etched his name further in history as the only individual to ever win two medals for Uganda at the same edition of Olympics. In ranking Uganda’s greatest athletes before Tokyo, Cheptegei was still behind Akii-Bua and Kiprotich, who also won the 2013 world title over the 42km race, even if he had gathered plenty of success in the previous four years.
He had broken three world records on the road before adding those of the 5000m and 10000m last year. Yet prior, Cheptegei had won the 10000m silver at the 2017 London World Championships and the double at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Australia.
The 24-year-old would even add the world cross-country and 10000m titles at the 2019 Doha Worlds in Qatar but to go above Kiprotich, he needed to wait for an extra year to grab an Olympic title.
He faltered in the 25-lap final on July 31 and upon getting the 5000m Olympic gold around his neck at the top of the podium in Tokyo, Cheptegei sealed it as the country’s Greatest Of All Time (G.O.A.T).
Cheptegei has now surpassed all marks of his predecessors including Moses Kipsiro and Boniface Kiprop and, he can no longer be compared to anyone else from Uganda. There is more from him.
