Tokyo Olympics 2021: Aussie 800m star Peter Bol runs in final on Wednesday night

Aussie middle-distance newcomer Peter Bol is taking Tokyo by storm. It’s certainly a change from the relative anonymity he enjoyed when he made his Olympic debut five years ago.

When Peter Bol made his Olympic debut in Rio, the two people he wanted to meet were basketball stars Patty Mills and Klay Thompson.

Now – after charging his way into the 800m final – it is HIM everyone wants to meet.

Those who know athletics have been watching the 27-year-old middle-distance newcomer get better.

Peter Bol will be one of the form runners in the 800m decider.

But when he led the 800m semi-final in Tokyo – and held on to win and force his way into the final – the rest of Australia took notice.

Like our 100m sensation Rohan ‘The Flying Mullet’ Browning the night before, everyone’s asking: who is this guy?

Forced to flee Sudan because of civil war and look for safe haven in Egypt, Bol arrived in Queensland as a 10-year-old.

It took Bol until he was in Year 11 to find his feet. He only pursued running because former staff member Helen Leahy, at St Norbert’s in Perth, recognised his talents when he could not.

When he arrived in Rio, having missed the world juniors and Commonwealth Games, Bol felt like a fish out of water on the track.

Not for the first time, he was a little fish in a big pond not knowing where to turn and who to turn to in athletics. He rubbed shoulders with Usain Bolt, but the newcomer hardly knew another member on the track at the Olympics.

Peter Bol is ready to make his mark in Tokyo.

“I was pretty excited to meet the basketball players more than the runners because I didn’t know the runners as I was pretty new to the sport,” Bol said.

Basketball royalty in Mills and US megastar Thompson were the two names Bol reeled off that he met during his 2016 Olympics, before also mentioning Bolt, too.

Bol described his Rio experience as “a bit of fun” because he had really just arrived in the sport.

“It was only five years after I started athletics, so it was my first ever time in the Australian colours,” Bol says.

“I didn’t ever go to juniors, Commonwealth or anything like that, so that was pretty scary.

Originally published as Tokyo Olympics 2021: Aussie 800m star Peter Bol runs in final on Wednesday night