Mägi finished third in his heat on Monday with a time of 48.62 seconds, and qualified for the final in fine style on Wednesday night, coming from near the back of the pack to finish second in his semifinal, with a time of 48.16 seconds.

Friday was the third olympic final Mägi, 32, had made it to: He finished sixth in Rio in 2016, and seventh at the Tokyo games, held three years ago.

Racing in lane four at Friday's Paris final, Mägi got off to a modest start just as he had done on Wednesday, pushing hard in the second half of the race. While this may have put him in fourth place by the finish line, but on a fairly damp track he tripped on the final hurdle, which cost him vital time.

The Estonian pushed through to the finish line with a time of 52.53, but this placed him seventh, thanks to a DNF from Roshawn Clarke (Jamaica), who had also fallen at the final hurdle though did not hit the ground as Mägi did.

Immediately post-race, Mägi said: "My first fall in the 400-meter hurdles... well I think I might have started smelling that fourth place a bit too soon."

"You still need to clear the hurdle before you accelerate, and maybe I was a bit impatient on that hurdle," Mägi went on, speaking to ERR.

"Maybe the conditions were a bit slippery, which isn't usual for me. It was common knowledge that I wouldn't be leading at the halfway stage, but the first eight hurdles went smoothly, the ninth too, and I was starting to draw all the other racers back to me. I felt like I could still pull it off, but that last hurdle prove unlucky."

"I knew [bronze medal winner Alison] dos Santos was coming up hard, and I tried to stay in his slipstream on the back straight. I think the start went faster than in the semifinal, and perhaps even faster than my Estonian record pace. I cleared the eighth hurdle just as required. There have been other times when that last hurdle didn't go perfectly."

"When you sense you are catching up with someone, and you're attacking the hurdle at high speed, with arms and legs all over the place, sometimes small mistakes can happen. But then again, having this on a Friday night, live on prime time, is something you don't really want," Mägi chuckled.

Rai Benjamin (U.S.) took gold (46.46), reigning olympic champion and world record holder Karsten Warholm (Norway) the silver (47.06), with the Brazilian dos Santos taking bronze (47.26) as noted .

Racing in front of a home crowd in a neighboring lane to Mägi was Frenchman Clement Ducos, who was just outside the medals in fourth place, half a second behind dos Santos.

Only one Estonian is still to compete at the games, which end Sunday – weightlifter Mart Seim is competing in the men's 102 kg category from 12.30 p.m. today, Saturday.

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