Cole Hocker went to the 2024 Summer Olympics with one goal in mind: to make a name for himself. Mission accomplished. The 23-year-old Team USA long distance runner won the men’s 1500m in dramatic fashion on Tuesday, August 6, outpacing the event’s favorites with a final flurry that saw him set an Olympic record of 3 minutes, 27.
65 seconds. A 30-1 underdog heading into the race, Hocker leaves Paris with a gold medal that sent shockwaves through the racing world. So, what else is there to know about this surprise Olympic champion? Keep scrolling to find out.
As an eighth grader at Fall Creek Valley Middle School in Indianapolis, Hocker ran a 4:36 mile. “It was definitely a turning point,” Hocker told the Indianapolis Star in 2021. His father Kyle recalled how his son played a bunch of other sports growing up — including basketball, soccer and flag football — but they weren’t quite sure where he was going to land.
“I knew he had an unusual skill set,” he told the Star . “We just didn’t know what to do with it.” By the time Hocker got to high school, it was clear that running was in his future.
During his senior year at Cathedral High School in Indianapolis, he won state titles in both cross-country and track in the 800 and 1,600. Hocker was recruited by schools like Indiana, Colorado and Northern Arizona, but he ultimately chose the University of Oregon where he competed from 2019 to 2021. At the 2021 NCAA Division I Indoor Track and Field Championships, .