At the Meeting Athletissima in Lausanne, the Norwegian runs the best time of the year over 1500 m. In the future he also wants to be one of the fastest in the world over 10,000 m.
The competitors can only watch: Jakob Ingebrigtsen wins the 1500 m in Lausanne.
It’s an image you gradually get used to. Running lights at the edge of the track set the pace on the running tracks. They enable very regular races and, alongside the super shoes with their springy soles, are the second explanation for various records in the last three years. In Lausanne, Jakob Ingebrigtsen specified how fast the lights should run. 3:30 minutes was the measure, a time in a class of its own.
The Norwegian is the exceptional runner at the moment – nobody talks about the Africans who have been setting the standards for years. However, Ingebrigtsen has a spot in his book this year, he let himself be sprinted over 1500 m by Brit Jake Wightman at the World Championships. He later said that he was defeated by a weaker athlete. That’s probably true, but it wasn’t very sporty.
The best time as a message to Wightman
The result sheet from Ingebrigtsen in 2022 is still impressive: World Championship silver over 1500 m, World Championship gold over 5000 m, then gold medal at the European Championships on both distances. He used the meeting in Lausanne to send a short message to Wightman. With his furious finish at the World Cup, he had run the best time of the year.
The stain in Jakob Ingebrigtsen’s clean booklet: The Brit Jake Wightman sprints the Norwegian over 1500 m in the World Cup final.
Now the Norwegian ran relaxed at first after the pacemakers, and when they got out, Ingebrigtsen stepped up a gear and also sprinted over the flashing lights. The clock showed 3:29.05, the best time of the year. And the jubilation of the winner clearly showed how important this was to him.
The day before, the 21-year-old had been asked why running looked so easy for him. It’s the product of a lot of training, he said. If an athlete is fast but doesn’t look very aesthetic, then he may have talent, but he still lacks the necessary work. Ingebrigtsen began training at the age of three and says he has been a professional all his life.
He wants to achieve the almost unthinkable
The man is not only fast and successful, he also has a huge ego. That’s why he doesn’t just want to win, he wants to set standards. Records would be something, but he doesn’t feel ready for that yet. On the other hand, he believes he is ready to expand the spectrum. He would have liked to have tried the triple over 1500, 5000 and 10,000 m at the European Championships in Munich. He had to bury the project because he fell ill with Corona just when he wanted to run the participation limit on the longest rail distance.
But the company is only postponed. Ingebrigtsen said in Lausanne that the schedule for the 2024 Summer Games in Paris would allow three starts. Gold on the running distances of 1500 to 10,000 m would be an exceptional achievement that is hard to imagine.
Emil Zatopek, who won the 5,000 and 10,000 m as well as the marathon in 1952, recently achieved something similarly crazy. In the early history of athletics, the exceptional Finnish runner Paavo Nurmi also managed a crazy triple: He won over 1500 and 5000 m in 1924 and then also ran away from his opponents in cross-country skiing over 10.65 km. The two track races were held within two hours. Nurmi had previously simulated this in Helsinki – and ran a world record over both distances.
At the 2021 Summer Games, Sifan Hassan tried what Ingebrigtsen is now considering. The Dutch won the longer distances but only finished third in the 1500m. She lacked the final speed to prevail in the final. That’s what makes this treble so difficult: in addition to two long distances, you also have to run a middle distance, which makes completely different demands. Impossible? To prove the opposite would be exactly to the taste of Jakob Ingebrigtsen.