The defending Olympic champion Eliud Kipchoge led the race through 10 kilometres, with Adams splitting 31:41 alongside his teammate Brett Robinson (32:01).

Adams moved through halfway in 1:07:05, before digging in to maintain his pace and move from 65th to 24th in the back half of the course.

In the past two decades, only two Australians have performed better than Adams at the Olympic Games and the result also improves on the 31st place he achieved at Rio 2016.

Adams, who works full time as an electrician, was thrilled with the performance.

“It’s not too bad for a sparky, hey,” Adams said.

“I’m really happy with it. I was hoping for top-30. I probably went out a bit too hard, I was inspired by Sinead yesterday, and I died a little bit towards the end but on the whole it was a good result.”

Like many of Australia’s road athletes at these Olympic Games, Adams used pre-cooling to ensure a comfortable start to his run before the challenging conditions of heat, humidity (and today wind!) set in.

“It’s all new to me. I’ve only done it once. We did a marathon session about two weeks out from the race and tried the pre-ice-bath and it worked well. I was quite cool to start, and it certainly helped towards the end.”

“I tried my best to tuck in, but there were a few spots where I was quite isolated, so I just had to maintain my pace. I used that to progress through the field.”

Adams was joined on the marathon start line by Brett Robinson and Jack Rayner.

A starter in the 5000m at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, Robinson placed 66th in a time of 2:24:04 after suffering stomach cramping that impacted his ability to hold a strong pace. 

Robinson was disappointed by the performance but can take confidence in his strength after holding on to finish despite the challenges.

“I got a stitch and had a few problems with my stomach. I thought I had it sorted but it came back at 25 kilometres. I just had to jog. It just sucks. My heart rate was down to 150, it was like I was barely trying. It’s disappointing and frustrating,” Robinson said.

“I’ve pulled out of a marathon before and it’s not a good feeling. I just wanted to get to the finish line.

Rayner, who has battled significant injury in the lead up to Tokyo 2020 and had limited training opportunity as a consequence, did not finish.

Australia’s athletics team has delivered three medals at Tokyo 2020, with Nicola McDermott winning silver in the women’s high jump, Ash Moloney a bronze in the men’s decathlon and Kelsey-Lee Barber bronze in the women’s javelin with a season best performance.

The highlights also include 14 top-eight performances to see Australia among the top-ten nations on the World Athletics Placing Table, five Australian Records and sixteen Personal Bests.

Cody Lynch