Ethiopia’s Selemo Barega won the 10,000m final, denying Ugandans Joshua Cheptegei and Jacob Kiplimo who settled for silver and bronze.
Uganda’s only gold medals at the Olympics remain from John Akii Bua and Stephen Kiprotich.
Akii Bua clocked 47.82 in that Munich Olympics final in Germany to take a phenomenal 0.3 seconds off the world record set by the then greatest hurdler David Hemery four years earlier.
More remarkable, was he run that final from the inside lane – considered the least favorite position in the one lap race.
In London 2012, Stephen Kiprotich was also an outsider going into the last event of the Olympics, the marathon.
After toying with favourites from Kenya and Ethiopia, Kiprotich raced to the front with six kms remaining to win the men’s Olympic marathon in two hours eight minutes 11 seconds.
The two medals won by Joshua Cheptegei and Kiplimo are the first bagged by team Uganda at 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
