Paris Olympics 2024: Oliver Hoare slumps in 1500m heat to finish third last, medal hope in danger

The first major shock in the athletics program came in the opening heat of the 1500m with Commonwealth champion Olli Hoare fading badly to finish third last.

The first major shock in the athletics program came in the opening heat of the 1500m with Commonwealth champion Olli Hoare fading badly to finish third last.

Fortunately for the Australian a new addition to the Paris Olympics is a repechage round so he will get another chance to qualify for the semi-finals but adding another race clearly impacts any chance of winning a medal.

He will be joined in the repechage by his two Aussie teammates, Stewart McSweyn and Adam Spencer, who also missed out on the automatic top six qualifiers in the heats.

Hoare, who won the mile event at the London Diamond League two weeks ago, looked in trouble even at the bell lap when he was pushing to stay in the top three.

Then by the 200m mark as the surge started he was gone and clearly by the home straight his mind was on the repechage round and he basically jogged to the line.

Olli Hoare faded badly in the Men's 1500m Round 1 to finish third last. Picture: Getty Images

Hoare said he “misjudged” his tactics in a rough race and needed to move on quickly if he was going to keep his Olympic dream alive in Saturday night’s repechage.

“When you have that kind of field for the first round it was pretty brutal,” he said. “I don’t like that type of race, it’s tough when you’re near the front. You don’t know when the kicks are coming and I misjudged that.

“We have to move on. I was confident in my ability to get through this first round and then reassess for the semi-final but we now have to move on to the repechage and just try and get a top three spot.”

McSweyn said he would go back to the drawing board ahead of the repechage round.

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“It’s obviously pretty disappointing, I feel like I ran my race but I didn’t close as well as I was hoping,” he said.

“It’s going to be one hell of a story if we can turn it around for another episode. All three of us came here with big goals so we’re going to have to fight back.

“I think that’s what Aussies do, when our backs are against the wall we find a way.”

Great Britain’s reigning world champion Josh Kerr won the opening heat in a season’s best 3:35.8sec while Hoare clocked 3:39.11sec for 13th. McSweyn finished 11th (3:36.55sec) and Spencer eighth (3:37.68sec).

The Australians can thank American broadcaster NBC for getting his second shot at a semi-final berth as they thought they weren’t getting enough track and field events for the huge money they’d paid to have the Olympic rights.

The events where athletes get a second chance are in the 200m, 400m, 800m, 1500m and hurdle events.