Brave Adriaan Wildschutt nails SA record; Prudence Sekgodiso ...

Adriaan Wildschutt ran a brave race as he stuck to the front of the men’s 10,000m at the Paris Olympics on Friday night, but when the kick came with 500m to go, he was unable to retaliate.

Even so, he finished an impressive 10th in a 26min 50.64sec South African record in the fastest race in Olympic history.

The first 13 men were all under 27 minutes and inside the previous 27:01.17 Olympic record from 2008.

Uganda’s Joshua Cheptegei won in 26:43.14, edging Ethiopian Berihu Aregwai by three-tenths of a second in a sprint finish. American Grant Fisher was third in 26:43.46.

Prudence Sekgodiso easily advanced to the 800m semifinals, but she said after heat that she had gone too early with 300m to go and felt it as she tired in the final 100m.

She finished second in her heat in 1min 59.84sec to secure an automatic spot in Sunday’s semifinals.

When the race started she made sure she was near the front when the race came together on the back straight.

But at 300m out she attacked but was unable to reel in Cuban Daily Cooper Gaspar, the winner in 1:58.88.

“Honestly, I feel like I made a quick move in at the [300] mark and that was my biggest mistake.

“At the last 100 I almost gave up, but you know what I was like, you know what, I’ve got to do this for my country and that’s what I did.

“I was watching myself [on] the screen, I was like, you know what, I’ve got this.”

Before the race Sekgodiso twice got reprimanded by officials, first for sitting on the box marking the lane and then when she walked down the home straight while waiting for the race to get under way.

“We waited for almost five minutes … I was just trying to calm myself,” said Sekgodiso.

The newly introduced repechage round seemingly forced some athletes to go hard in the heats, like Ethiopian Tsige Duguma who won in 1:57.90 ahead of Kenyan 1:57.95.

Another 10 athletes went sub 1:59.00.

Compare that to last year’s world championships or even the Tokyo 2020 Games where the fastest heat time was slower than 1:59.10.

Middle-distance stars Tshepo Tshite and Ryan Mphahlele failed to book spots in the 1,500m semifinals and will be back on Saturday to try book their spots in the repechage round.

And Kyle Blignaut, sixth in Tokyo, missed a spot in the shot-put final by just 3cm after his 20.78m effort placed him 13th overall.

Elsewhere, the men’s hockey team beat hosts France 5-2 to score their first victory of the Olympic tournament.