Paris 2024 Olympics: USA's Grant Fisher defies odds to secure medal podium finish in men's 10,000m
One year ago this month, Grant Fisher was sprawled on a couch, uncomfortably watching the 2023 World Athletics Championships on television. It was a difficult moment for the American long-distance runner, who by his own admission wasn’t the "happiest athlete."
The 27-year-old Fisher had been battling injuries and just missed out on making the USA team for the worlds. As he pondered his future, what kept him going was thinking about the Olympic Games Paris 2024, and a 10,000m race for which he had not yet even qualified.
It was a dark but familiar place.
“For a whole year, I've been thinking about this race,” he says.
And on Friday, 2 August, inside a packed Stade de France, Fisher beat the odds, pulling the biggest surprise of the 10,000m men’s final. Even more impressive was that he overcame a stumble deep into the fastest 25-lap race ever at an Olympics to snatch a bronze medal behind Uganda’s Joshua Cheptegei and Ethiopia's Berihu Aregawi.
It had been a long time coming.
“I have always been on the outside looking in with the medals,” Fisher said afterwards. “I have seen 1-2-3 slip away, but today I managed to get it. To finally do it, it feels so good.”
Fisher is the first US runner to medal in the 10,000 meters since Galen Rupp took silver at London 2012.
Silver medallist Berihu Aregawi of Ethiopia, gold medallust Joshua Cheptegei of Uganda and bronze medallist Grant Fisher of the United States celebrate after the men's 10,000m final on day seven of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 at Stade de France on 2 August 2024 in Paris, France.
Grant Fisher a promising football star who loved running
Fisher loved running from a young age, but he had always truly found his feet on the football pitch. In 2012, he missed the Michigan state cross country meet because he had to play for his football team in the state finals.
But any doubts on where he would end up spending most of his sporting career years were erased when he made the junior teams and competed at the 2013 World Youth Championships in Athletics, and then the world juniors the following year.
“When I was a kid, [American] Billy Mills was one of the few guys who had made it to the top, Galen Rupp was one of the few who had made it to the top … there’s a handful of guys who had it made to the top three, but they are few far in between," Fisher recalled. "We have a few people to look up to … but not very many.
“The narrative when I was a kid was that you can’t run with these African guys, you can’t run with the best of the European guys,” Fisher concluded on some of the history that weighed on him as a young, up and coming runner.
Fisher, born in Calgary, Canada but who moved to Michigan as a youngster, was a talented middle- and long-distance runner. He flirted with Olympic qualification for Rio 2016 while competing for Stanford University in northern California as a 12-time All-American, an honour awarded to the best athletes in their respective sport.
Making the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 further validated his potential. His fifth-place finish in the 10,000m was his best showing in Japan, as he slipped to ninth over the 5,000m at the same Games.
But Fisher admits it was an intimidating experience.
“My very first international competition at the senior level was at the Tokyo Olympics and I remember I lined up right next to Joshua [Cheptegei],” he recalled, pointing to the double Olympic gold medallist.
“And I remember he had just broken the world record in the 10k and the 5k. And I just PR’d in the 10k and I run 27:11, which was actually a good minute slower than he had just run. I was like, ‘how am I supposed to race this guy, he is a minute faster than I am?’ ”
Grant Fisher of the USA runs during the men's 10,000m final on day seven of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 at Stade de France on 2 August 2024 in Paris, France. Fisher finished third for a bronze medal.
Fisher on the mindset shift: 'I belong in these [top] positions'
Fisher kept at it and 2022 turned out to be a great year. He went down as the first American to run the 5,000m in under 12:50 and the 10,000m in under 26:40.
Later that season in Eugene, Oregon, at the World Athletics Championships, he attempted the track distance double again, finishing fourth in both events.
Fisher was on the right path to becoming one of the world’s best distance runners, until a series of injuries derailed his plans.
The runner left his long-term training base at the Bowerman Track Club in Eugene and sought out his high school coach Mike Scannell at Park City, Utah.
Working his way back to form wasn’t easy. But Fisher was keen to blossom into one of the world’s best distance runners.
“I think in the past three years my mindset shifted a lot to I kind of belong in these positions and I have become a better athlete,” said Fisher.
At the Stade de France on Friday, we saw glimpses of the new Fisher. He was calculated from the gun, staying within touching distance of the lead pack and only falling back after he was clipped from behind, but steadily managing to stay in the race.
“So many things have to come together to get that to happen. My margins were probably more slim than these guys today,” he said. “The race could have gone a lot of different ways, and they could have gone on the podium, but I needed to execute a really spotless race. I wanted to be in good position the whole time and I don’t have the light speed to make out a ton of speed instantly, and it worked well.
“These races always come down to the last lap, specifically the last 100 meters, to be in position and fighting you are running the line the whole race, but the last few meters you can see your goal right in front you.
“I can count to three, and this sport is defined by top three. These guys have been on the podium before — this is my first time.”
Fisher now shifts focus to the 5,000m that starts on 7 August, before the final on the last day of track action on Saturday, 10 August.
He hopes that winning Team USA’s first track and field medal of the Paris Olympics inspires a new generation of long-distance runners.
“I hope that everybody can see that as my mindset shifts, so should everybody's in the U.S. as well," Fisher said. “People are capable of great things, and you have to put yourself in the positions and believe in yourself in order for good things to happen.”