Canada's Moh Ahmed starts 4th Olympics with 4th-place finish in men's 10,000 metres

Moh Ahmed of St. Catharines, Ont., kicked off his fourth Olympics with a fourth-place finish in the men's 10,000 metres.

The 33-year-old ran a season-best time of 26 minutes 43.79 seconds and held a top-two position with a few laps left. However, he fell behind in the final stretch to miss out on his first-ever podium finish in the race at an Olympics or world championship.

"I ran that as well as I could," he said. "I covered every single move, I felt really good. Every time I commanded my body to move, it responded really well. I knew this race was gonna be really, really tough because it had eight of the top 14 all-timers or something like that.

"But this was the fastest 10,000-metre race ever because of the depth, ... I worked really, really hard this year, all I was looking forward to was a championship. ... I think I executed that race really, really well I just didn't have anything left in the last 50 [metres]."

Uganda's Joshua Cheptegei earned gold with an Olympic record (26:43.14), Ethiopia's Berihu Aregawi took silver (26:43.44) and the United States' Grant Fisher grabbed bronze (26:43.46).

Earlier Friday, world champion Ethan Katzberg booked himself a ticket into Sunday's men's hammer throw final.

The Nanaimo, B.C., native threw 79.93 metres to lead Group B. Rowan Hamilton of Chilliwack, B.C., also qualified with a personal-best throw of 77.78 metres to pace Group A.

Katzberg is the top-ranked hammer thrower and owns the world-leading mark this year at 84.38 metres, also the world's furthest throw in 16 years. The 22-year-old is making his Olympic debut after breaking out in 2023 by winning gold at the world championships in Budapest, Hungary.

Audrey Leduc left a mark in her Olympic debut.

The 25-year-old