Venue Athens Olympic Stadium Competitors 36 from 22 nations | Dates 25–28 August Winning time 13:14.39 | |
The men's 5,000 metres at the 2004 Summer Olympics as part of the athletics program were held at the Athens Olympic Stadium on August 25 and 28.
Contents
The final witnessed an epic clash between two track greats from different generations: in his final competitive international race, 1500m champion and track legend Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco and 10,000 meter Olympic champion, world record holder at the distance and rising star 21-year-old Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia.
Despite finding himself boxed in with only 200 metres remaining and trailing Bekele by several metres, El Guerrouj ran down and overhauled the Ethiopian in the final strides to win by just two tenths of a second. With this, El Guerrouj set a historic milestone as the first ever athlete to strike a distance double (1500–5000) since Paavo Nurmi did so in 1924, denying Bekele a chance to do the Olympic 5000 and 10000 m double – which he would ultimately win four years later in Beijing.
Records
Prior to the competition, the existing World and Olympic records were as follows.
No new records were set during the competition.
Qualification
The qualification period for athletics was 1 January 2003 to 9 August 2004. For the men's 1500 metres, each National Olympic Committee was permitted to enter up to three athletes that had run the race in 13:21.50 or faster during the qualification period. If an NOC had no athletes that qualified under that standard, one athlete that had run the race in 13:25.40 or faster could be entered.
Schedule
All times are Eastern European Summer Time (UTC+3)
Round 1
Qualification rule: The first five finishers in each heat (Q) plus the next five fastest overall runners (q) advanced to the final.