Cole Hocker’s 2025 season was defined by frustration and faith. He was winless in all six of his Grand Slam Track races, couldn’t grab victory at USAs in the 1500m, and then faced his lowest moment, a disqualification in the 1500m semifinal at Worlds after contact with Robert Farken. That left him with only one shot: the 5,000m final. Instead of breaking, Hocker doubled down on the self-belief that brought him to gold in Paris the previous summer.

When the gun went off last Sunday evening at Tokyo’s National Stadium, the race unfolded at an honest but unspectacular tempo—perfect conditions for Hocker to seize control early on. His compatriots, Grant Fisher and Nico Young, took turns pushing the pace, but the pack refused to splinter. Big threats remained as France’s Jimmy Gressier, Ethiopia’s Biniam Mehary, and Belgium’s Isaac Kimeli all remained in contention.

With 16 men still in the hunt as the laps wound down, the race had all the makings of a kicker’s showdown. Over the final 400 meters, Hocker summoned a kick no one else possessed or could match. He went from 12th at the bell to first at the line, closing in a ridiculous 52.6 final lap and 25.5 last 200 to win in 12:58.30.

With his arms outstretched and his long hair whipped back, Hocker flexed to the Tokyo crowd. The redemption arc was complete.

At just 24 years old, Hocker already owns two global golds and an American record (1500m). He’s just the third American ever to win a global 5,000m, along with Bob Schul at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, and Bernard Lagat at the 2007 World Championships in Osaka. And he joins only Paavo Nurmi, Hicham El Guerrouj, Jakob Ingebrigtsen, and Bernard Lagat as men who’ve won both the 1500m and 5,000m on the global stage.

Days after the gold medal, Hocker sat down with CITIUS MAG to recap his entire experience.

His Thoughts On The DQ

“I had a feeling immediately after… I wasn’t trying to do anything. No admission of guilt. I was just trying to get into the top six. The only kind of saving grace is that I’ve seen how these semis and prelims go every single championship. The race right before—I guess the contact is right after the line, but Kerr is on the ground, and there are just bodies coming in. It’s always weird. I also knew that it’s not the athlete who usually protests. It’s the federation and I knew any federation was going to take full advantage of anything like that. Those were kind of my thoughts immediately after.

I saw my agent and my coach. I could just tell on their faces and thought, ‘Oh no. Just tell me.’ They’re like, ‘Nothing yet.’ I went about my cooldown as normal. For whatever reason, I wasn’t gutted in the moment. It actually took like three hours. It was a slow thing. They protested. Then they’re showing you as a DQ but we’re still going to appeal as USATF. I was still holding out hope for that. And then it was finalized. I was pissed, to be fair. I had cooled down. I had gotten back to the hotel. It was definitely upsetting, but less so because I had the 5000m. All the other years I’ve made it to a global championship, I’d only done the 1500m. If that were the case this year, that would’ve been terrible. That’s the worst possible way for that to go.

Then, I had the ability to shift focus and say, ‘Whatever. I can be pissed about it tonight but then let’s move on.’ Immediately, I knew I had one less race on my legs for that 5000m. Let’s take full advantage, get off my feet and get my mind right.”

How he recalibrated his emotions and deleted social media

“No hole in the wall. No broken lamp. I was on the verge of it. I really tried to make note of having all this emotion, so let’s redirect it. Let’s use this productively, which is much easier said than done—especially in a moment like that.

I do have a journal that I write in throughout the year, especially before races. I wrote, pretty much to myself, that I was pissed but let’s use all of these emotions productively instead of wasting them.”

“That night of the DQ, I opened Instagram by habit. Boom! Right in front of me is ‘DQ’ right over my face. Obviously, that happened. I saw that and was like, ‘I have to get off.’ It was the same mindset of any emotion I have toward this, I want to be used productively. So looking and stewing at photos and inevitably reading the comments of people having a thousand opinions was doing absolutely nothing for me. Of course, I was really grateful because so many people were on my side and saying, ‘Oh! That’s bullshit!’ or whatever. I appreciate that. Then, they’re saying that I’m going to get revenge in that 5000m. Also good. But it does add pressure. Yes, I also think that. I’m going to try as hard as I can, but I know the story is a lot easier than actually doing it.

I shut it off and watched a bunch of YouTube videos that weren’t related to running. I hung out with my family and completely shut off social media. It was extremely helpful. It doesn’t exist, if you don’t look at it. This was the first time that I’ve done that. I’ve tried to put down social media in the past and have but it’s a different thing when there’s a conversation about you.”

What he watched on YouTube

“I’m gonna sound like a dork but I was just grinding history—American history, U.S. presidents, Japan history. I learned a lot.”

Note: He ended up watching Shane Gillis and Louie C.K.’s The Presidents podcast series.

Defending his default to ride the rail in races

“Go back and watch my career. If you just look at statistics, it’s worked more times than not. Also, I’m not intentionally sticking on the rail until the very end. That’s almost never my race plan. Yeah, I want to stay on the rail a lot of the time because you’re running less distance. Everyone knows that. That’s not a new thing. I probably do it more than most runners but I’m comfortable there. In a race like the U.S. Championships 5000m, I was running in the front on the rail, everyone goes around me and one by one people move out, move out, move out. And when it comes down to the final 100m and the last person moves out, that race happened to play into my favor. But of course, the one time I guess it backfires—it happens to be on a bigger stage—and everyone is going to point that out. But also, it was the DQ. I did get out of the box illegally, but it was a gray area. I still got through. Evidently, I was in a position that I should not have been.”

Thoughts and observations on the first round of the 5000m

“My prelim was 13:13. I was kinda like, ‘Why? We did not have to run that fast.’ I went to the front and it was a similar thing to what I did at USAs. I was planning on just running a controlled pace and staying out of traffic… Be able to react to the moves. I understood (Andreas) Almgren’s strategy. He definitely has a lot of strength and maybe not as much of a kick so he ramped it up. I think we ran a sub-4:00 last mile in the 5000m prelim. I didn’t want to be that sore. It was what it was.

Coming off of that, I thought, ‘I don’t think they can run my legs off like they’ve been able to do in the 5000m in the past.’ That was the next takeaway and I was pretty confident. Yes, I’m sore, but everyone else is sore. Even that next heat ran 13:40. You close like crazy in those races and that’s what makes you sore. Everyone is feeling the same thing and they weren’t able to run my legs off so I don’t see it going much faster than that for the last mile with the field that I saw. I had a lot of confidence. I was just hoping that I didn’t feel like total trash when the gun went off.”

Coach Ben Thomas’ race plan for the final

“He gave me a rough plan. I was more vocal about going out and getting to the front like I had done in the past two 5000ms that I’ve done. I feel like I’ve still been learning the 5000m. Now, I’m starting to feel almost as comfortable in the 5000m as the 1500m. That’s just kind of what I like doing. I don’t know if I’m going to keep doing that in every 5000m race but as far as at a championship, I really like it— just get to the front, find my pace and then make everyone make a move and make a decision. Then, just stick. That was pretty much the plan. If they’re going to let me run my pace, let that go as long as possible. I had a feeling that they weren’t going to let that go very long. And then, just stick.

I knew if I was there with a lap to go, it would be pretty hard to lose. I really wanted to be there with two laps to go. I thought I could muscle out two laps no matter what.

In the race, when we talked about a month and a half ago and I talked about how these championships had always been run pretty slowly and just watching them thinking, ‘Ugh!’ It’s not easy, but it fits me so well. It’s going to be perfect for me. And then in the race, I’m thinking, ‘Of course this is the year when they hammer!’ I was like, ‘Well, stick on them and just hurt as much as I can.’

I did get a feeling that it’s almost impossible for someone to hammer it the whole way. I went back and watched a ton of global 5000m championships. Anytime someone tries to do that, they can do it for a while—it’s not that they can’t do it but it’s more so the fact that naturally they just have to let off because you want to be sure that you can finish. It’s not a time trial where you’re just going for a time and you can see where you blow up or see if you hit the wall. For everyone, it’s just human instinct to hold back. You just want to make sure that you can at least medal if you’re hammering from the front. I was pretty aware of that going into it. That’s another thing I told myself, ‘When it goes and they really make it go, just stick there for two laps and I feel like there’s a good chance that they’re going to let up.’ And that’s exactly what happened and it kept happening. I didn’t even see the front where Nico (Young) and Grant (Fisher) were trading off. It seemed like someone would kind of go and they’d let off a bit. I’m all the way in the back and I would feel it—oh, it just lagged because we’re running two-wide all of a sudden. It was about matching all of those moves all the way 10 places back.”

On becoming invisible once he was passed:

“I prepared for that moment. Grant went around pretty hard. Then, Nico immediately answered and stuck to him. I was just like, ‘If they’re going to keep that pace up, I have 10 laps to reel them in, if I really need to.’ More realistically, people just started going around me. I thought, ‘OK. That’s great. I’ll let them go around me and I’ll stick to them.’ Stay invisible and stay on the rail like I do and just keep running even. I didn’t want to make any sporadic moves. That was a lot of it: not wanting to make any big moves when I didn’t have to.”

The closing stages of the race

“From the fourth kilometer until honestly about two laps to go, there wasn’t any huge surge in pace, so I could see the field. I just have a feel for how far away that leader is. I’m not really thinking about it, but I know the leader is not too far off the front. But with 400m to go, it’s just do or die. That’s when I got off the rail. I’m not getting by 11 bodies on the rail. That’s just not happening.

I remember thinking, ‘I gotta get some people. It’s going to be tough.’ But I really started moving on that backstretch. I told myself, ‘Be patient. You don’t need to make it up at one time.’ In my head, there was one really big surge on the backstretch, I settled in on the turn, got into position and went full out on the home stretch. I was very consciously saying, ‘Don’t do it all at once. Wait, wait, wait and then go.’

I had no idea what was happening or who had taken the lead until watching it back. Another thing that we practiced and the goal of the race is: Be the last one to kick.

I was really happy with that because if you watch that last lap, yes, I started to wind it up at 400m to go but first you see (Biniam) Mehary go to the front with 200m to go. Then you see (Isaac) Kimeli right there on his shoulder. I think (Jimmy) Gressier started to go as soon as I started to go but that’s right when Kimeli kicked. Kimeli kicked with 100m to go. I kicked with 90m to go and felt like I was the last one to kick. That was nice—to execute exactly how I wanted to.”

“Watching it back, you can see me look at the screen. I was more concerned with someone kicking after me. I didn’t know if someone was going to come around flying over my shoulder. I was just pressing, pressing and once I looked at the screen and saw no one else was coming, I just put my head down and finished. I don’t know the limits to the kick yet.”

52.62 for the final lap

“It definitely felt fast. It was weird because we were running fast. This is one of those races [where] now I can see my potential in an evenly-paced 5000m, even though it’s a different thing to run. That’s what I have to learn next: sustained pain. I’ve run sub-13:00 a few times now but running it how I did, I was hurting up until 10 laps. This hurts but don’t let a gap form. I was really holding on. Two laps to go, it got easier. Then that last lap was no thinking. I have that reserve.”

What coach Ben Thomas said after the race

“It’s good. I’m laughing because I don’t know if I should share this but the first thing he said was, ‘Protest that.’ He was probably more fired up after that 1500m than I was. We both hugged it out and it was a good moment. He just knows going into these championships where I am, and he’s seen it before, year after year. This year was just so comparable to last year. To put it in simple terms, I was comparing last year in training to this year and just knowing I was able to run 3:27 and win. This year, I felt like I had the same thing and I had that 5000m piece that I was missing last year. I was really confident and I could really tell when he’s really confident. For some of the races throughout the year, we have a race plan but he says just don’t get too consumed with the results.

This was all working toward September. As an athlete, that can be pretty hard. I hate losing. It’s tough to put myself out there when I know I can win a lot of the time but in this era, someone’s going for a world record or an American record and so if you’re not in that shape, you’re going to get your butt kicked. That’s tough to do, but going into the championships, we know where we’re at.