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Rio 2016

Treacy caps off stellar year with performance to be proud of in Olympic final

The 3,000m steeplechaser rubbed shoulders with the world’s elite this afternoon.

IRELAND’S SARA TREACY finished 17th in this afternoon’s women’s 3000m steeplechase final, which was won by Bahrain’s Kenyan-born runner Ruth Jebet.

Treacy qualified for the Olympic final after a successful appeal following a fall in her heat and the 27-year-old battled bravely to finish in a time of 9:52.70 in sweltering conditions in Rio.

Running in the final capped off a stellar year for the Meath athlete, who finished 9th at the European Championships last month.

Jebet produced an astonishing piece of front running to win gold as she blasted the field away in a time of 8:59.75 – missing out on the world record by less than a second.

Reigning world champion Hyvin Kiyeng Jepkemoi of Kenya took silver in 9;07.12, with American Emma Coburn claiming bronze.

US champion Coburn set the early pace before Jebet, who transferred her allegiance to Bahrain from her native Kenya in February 2013, surged with five laps to run of the seven-and-a-half lap race.

Sara Treacy James Crombie / INPHO James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO

As temperatures hit 35 degrees inside the Olympic Stadium, her pace immediately split the field, Jepkemoi and fellow Kenyan Beatrice Chepkoech just about staying in touch, with Coburn in fourth.

Jebet, the former world junior champion who is the second-fastest woman ever and only the second to run the event in less than nine minutes, maintained her punishing pace as the bell rang for the final lap.

Chepkoech fell off as Coburn moved up in her own battle for silver with Jepkemoi.

Ahead of them, Jebet pushed for Russian Gulnara Galkina’s world record of 8:58.81, just failing in her quest as she landed the Gulf state of Bahrain its first Olympic gold.

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