Freshly minted 800m Olympic champion Emmanuel Wanyonyi on Thursday night produced yet another blistering run to beat his arch-rival Marco Arop of Canada in a rematch at a Diamond League meet in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Wanyonyi pressed the gas pedal in the final stretch to win the race in 1 minute, 41.11 seconds —the world’s fastest since David Rudisha ran the world record of 1:40.91 in the 2012 Olympic final in London.
Fresh off his silver medal at the Paris Olympics, Canada’s Marco Arop returned to the track and finished second in the men’s 800-metre.
In a rematch of Paris, Olympic champion Kenya’s Emmanuel Wanyonyi was able to hold off Arop down the stretch, this time with a more sizeable margin.
Arop, 25, ended his race in 1:41.72, and France’s Gabriel Tual placed third in 1:42.30.
In a repeat of the Paris 2024 Olympic results, Edmonton’s Marco Arop finished in second place in a non-official men’s 800-metre race at the Diamond League meet in Lausanne, Switzerland, behind only Olympic gold-medal winner Emmanuel Wanyoni of Kenya. 4:04
At the Paris Olympics, Edmonton’s Arop stopped the clock in a Canadian-record time of 1:41.20. Wanyonyi held on for gold, beating Arop by one-hundredth of a second in 1:41.19.
Arop’s Olympic medal was Canada’s first in the event since Bill Crothers earned silver at the 1964 Tokyo Games, and fifth ever.
