Wycliffe Kinyamal during his heat (C) Kelly Ayodi / Olympics KE
Emmanuel Wanyonyi and Wycliffe Kinyamal are through to the semifinals of the men's 800 metres at the 2024 Paris Olympics Games after the duo finished in the top three positions of their heat races at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, Paris, on Wednesday morning.
Koitatoi Kidali, Kenya's other representative in the 800 metres, was not as successful after he finished 5th in Heat Two with a time of 1:45.84.
The event featured six heats in Round One with the first three finishers qualifying automatically for the semifinals.
Those who do not rank in the top three of their heats will have to contest a repechage round in order to clinch one of the remaining six semifinal slots.
Kidali was the first to take to the purple track in Heat Two and after failing to finish in the top three, he will get another chance to make the semifinals when he contests the repechage round race on Thursday.
Wanyonyi, who won silver in the event in Budapest last year during the 2023 World Athletics championships, dominated Heat Three, winning emphaticaly with a time of 1:44.64, the fastest of any runner in the heats.
In Heat Five, Wycliffe Kinyamal was fortunate to finish third with a time of 1:45.86, the slowest among the three Kenyans, after his decision to sprint away with 300 metres to go almost backfired.
Kinyamal faded in the last 150 metres, ceding the lead to the Briton Ben Pattison who won the race with a time of 1:45.56.
Kinyamal then tried his best to remain second but his energy for that effort was no match for the South African Edmund du Plessis who overtook him to finish second with a time of 1:45.73.
Fortunately, Kinyamal was already close to the finish line by the time the Frenchman Benjamin Robert was getting increasingly close to overtake him.
On perceiving the Frenchman's threat, Kinyamal summoned enough energy to maintain third place as the Robert finished fourth with a time of 1:45.92.
