Athletics at the 2004 Summer Olympics – Men's 5000 metres

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.[1]

Men's 5000 metres at the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad
Venue	Athens Olympic Stadium
Dates	25–28 August
Competitors	36 from 22 nations
Winning time	13:14.39
Medalists
Hicham El Guerrouj  Morocco Kenenisa Bekele  Ethiopia Eliud Kipchoge  Kenya

Official Video Highlights

Athletics at the 2004 Summer Olympics
Track events
100 m	men	women
200 m	men	women
400 m	men	women
800 m	men	women
1500 m	men	women
5000 m	men	women
10,000 m	men	women
100 m hurdles		women
110 m hurdles	men
400 m hurdles	men	women
3000 m steeplechase	men
4×100 m relay	men	women
4×400 m relay	men	women
Road events
Marathon	men	women
20 km walk	men	women
50 km walk	men
Field events
Long jump	men	women
Triple jump	men	women
High jump	men	women
Pole vault	men	women
Shot put	men	women
Discus throw	men	women
Javelin throw	men	women
Hammer throw	men	women
Combined events
Heptathlon		women
Decathlon	men
Wheelchair races

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. The race had a preview at the World Championships a year earlier. There the medalists were barely separated, but the young World Junior record holder Eliud Kipchoge upset the stars by taking gold after El Guerrouj had tried to break away on the final lap.

Here Bekele took an early lead, but instead chose not to push the pace. That duty fell onto Kipchoge, who had watched from behind the year before. Here, El Guerrouj spent most of the race watching from several places behind the lead. As the last lap began, El Guerrouj moved toward the front. Bekele challenged Kipchoge with 200 metres to go. It was a shoulder to shoulder all out sprint battle as Kipchoge refused to let Bekele by, but he couldn't hold him off. Bekele broke out at a lead of several metres. El Guerrouj first ran down Kipchoge, then 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.[2][3]