The event is almost the same length as the dolichos race held at the Ancient Olympic Games, introduced in 720 BCE.

[1][2] The 5000 metres is the (slightly longer) approximate metric equivalent of the 3-mile (4,828.0 m) run, an event common in countries which used the imperial measurement system.

Mo Farah of Great Britain matched the achievement, winning the title in 2012 in London, and retaining it four years later in Rio de Janeiro.

Finnish legend Paavo Nurmi is the only male runner to have won three Olympic medals at the distance, a gold and two silvers between 1920 and 1928.

Since then four African runners - two Kenyan, two Ethiopian - have repeated the feat; Tirunesh Dibaba and Meseret Defar of Ethiopia and Vivian Cheruiyot and Hellen Obiri of Kenya.