College Place HS Grad Wins Olympic Silver in Steeplechase Event

The 3,000-meter steeplechase might confuse you, but we know you've seen it. It's the distance race with the big pommel hurdles and the water pit.

  College Place Runner Wins Silver in Paris

Kenneth Rooks, who ran in HS at College Place (Walla Walla) and then was an NCAA champion at BYU,  narrowly missed a gold medal in a thrilling race in Paris on Wednesday.

Rooks finished just .36 seconds behind the gold medalist Morocco's Soufiane El Bakkali. Despite a fall earlier in the race, Rooks held on for 2nd. he'd had the lead until nearly the very end of the race.

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Rooks was able to stay in front of Kenya's Abraham Kibiwot who got the bronze.

According to KING-5 TV:

In addition to his work on the track, Rooks served a full-time mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints from 2019-21 in Africa and Utah, per his BYU athlete bio."

The 3,000-meter steeplechase is a distance event, where the runners make 7.5 laps around the track, and have to jump over 4 30-inch hurdles that look like traffic barriers. At the end of one of the barriers is a sloped water pit, runners plant their foot on the hurdle and leap as far out into the pit as possible. It's a grueling event, and he is now one of only 7 Americans to ever win any medal in the event in the Olympics.

He's the first US runner to medal in the steeple since 2016.   Experts say he stunned the field, he was not one of the favorites.