Unbelievable: Associated Press refers to Jakob Ingebrigtsen as the "pacemaker for Eliud Kipchoge’s sub-2 hour marathon"

You guys realize no one knows who any of these guys are, right? If you aren't a top sprinter, the world by and large has never heard of you. No one cares about Kipchoge outside a very small group. Same for Jakob. You guys only have this take because you are fans of the sport. That is not who the AP is trying to reach. I bet less than 1 in 1,000 Americans know who Centro is. Less than 1 in 10,000 have heard of Cole Hocker. Same for any other distance runners.

But they sure as hell know who Usain Bolt is.

AP5000 wrote:

You guys realize no one knows who any of these guys are, right? If you aren't a top sprinter, the world by and large has never heard of you. No one cares about Kipchoge outside a very small group. Same for Jakob. You guys only have this take because you are fans of the sport. That is not who the AP is trying to reach. I bet less than 1 in 1,000 Americans know who Centro is. Less than 1 in 10,000 have heard of Cole Hocker. Same for any other distance runners.

But they sure as hell know who Usain Bolt is.

Sure, and the AP author likely spent less than 30 seconds scanning Jakob's Wikipedia article to find something to write. That's all fine, but after scanning the Wikipedia intro paragraph, the author could have written:

"1500 and 5000m European champion" or:

"5000m European record holder" or, if the author also scanned the sidebar:

"1500m and 5000m European record holder"

All of that should seem more significant than "pacer for Kipchoge", even if you're not familiar with the sport.

It's not a big deal, just kind of sad/funny.

No mention of Karsten Warholm either, maybe just have it out for the Norwegians

Troothsayer wrote:

Phil Ken Sebben wrote:

He has already made a name for himself. Isn’t Jakob the European record holder at 1500m? That makes him faster than Farah at Farah’s fastest event, who held the mark prior, no?

If the author can’t put Jakob’s accomplishments (top 10-15 all-time in multiple events at age 20) into better context than being one of two dozen pacemakers for an exhibition they have little business writing about sports.

It’s lazy writing. But who is surprised?

Farah’s fastest event? Monaco does not count. Hell Mo Katir has run faster at 1500m than Mo Farah, again at Monaco. What a joke.

Rank these:

26:46

12:53

3:28

"Sure, and the AP author likely spent less than 30 seconds scanning Jakob's Wikipedia article to find something to write. That's all fine, but after scanning the Wikipedia intro paragraph, the author could have written:

"1500 and 5000m European champion" or:

"5000m European record holder" or, if the author also scanned the sidebar:

"1500m and 5000m European record holder"

Except that people like you and me already know that. The article was written for people that don't know - or care about - European records, but maybe - probably not, but maybe - have heard of the sub 2 marathon.

rojo wrote:

my two pennies wrote:

I mean…what else has he done? Non-track and field fans don’t care about his times because none of them are world records. They don’t care about diamond league wins or European championships. He’s not a global medalist of any kind. Don’t get me wrong, this is entirely because of his age (he was 18 at the last WC) and I’m sure he’ll make a name for himself before he’s done, but Kipchoge’s sub-2:00 marathon is the only thing that he’s been involved in that the average person would’ve heard of or cared about.

Really? Being the youngest sub-4 miler in history doesn't move the needle?

The sub four minute time probably moved lots of needles……..

AP5000 wrote:

You guys realize no one knows who any of these guys are, right? If you aren't a top sprinter, the world by and large has never heard of you. No one cares about Kipchoge outside a very small group. Same for Jakob. You guys only have this take because you are fans of the sport. That is not who the AP is trying to reach. I bet less than 1 in 1,000 Americans know who Centro is. Less than 1 in 10,000 have heard of Cole Hocker. Same for any other distance runners.

But they sure as hell know who Usain Bolt is.

Olympic road and mountain bike races will go off this weekend and early next week. I could talk about all races at length, and a few here would know who I was talking about, but Brojos, you guys would have no clue.

So yes, nobody cares who Jake is. If he wins the 1500, which to me is doubtful, he can be identified as an Olympic Gold Medalist. Otherwise, same deal. What has he done?

B Franklin wrote:

ArthurNotInMyYard wrote:

More likely that description was written by a 20-something idiot whose main form of "research" consists of going to Wikipedia.

I do feel like AP's journalism has become markedly worse over the last few years, probably because their reporters are like this.

This.

I think posters here are often overly critical of pros who are misquoted or taken out of context by journalists. If I want to form an opinion on something, I'll try to find the actual video of the comment.

In this case, it's just lazy research.

Barry McCahcner wrote:

"Sure, and the AP author likely spent less than 30 seconds scanning Jakob's Wikipedia article to find something to write. That's all fine, but after scanning the Wikipedia intro paragraph, the author could have written:

"1500 and 5000m European champion" or:

"5000m European record holder" or, if the author also scanned the sidebar:

"1500m and 5000m European record holder"

Except that people like you and me already know that. The article was written for people that don't know - or care about - European records, but maybe - probably not, but maybe - have heard of the sub 2 marathon.

"Pacemaker for Eliud Kipchoge’s sub-2 hour marathon" raises a bunch of questions for non-followers of distance running, even if they had heard of the sub-2 thing:

-What's a pacemaker?

-Who is Eliud Kipchoge?

-How special is a sub-2 marathon?

-Why is the pacemaker also special?

On the other hand, "European record holder" or "European champion" are easy to appreciate, even for someone who didn't know that such titles existed. And again, this stuff is plainly written in the intro to Jakob's wikipedia article. The pacer thing is there too, which is how the author learned of it, presumably.

We all know it should have been "Jakob Ingebrigtsen, Norway: Norwegian reality TV star"

fisky wrote:

B Franklin wrote:

I do feel like AP's journalism has become markedly worse over the last few years, probably because their reporters are like this.

This.

I think posters here are often overly critical of pros who are misquoted or taken out of context by journalists. If I want to form an opinion on something, I'll try to find the actual video of the comment.

In this case, it's just lazy research.

I wouldn't call it lazy research. It's not an article about Ingebrigtsen, it's for a throwaway list of athletes who post on Instagram. The only research required needed is to google him. There's enough information in the search results to write an 8 word bio...you don't even need to click through to anything. It's just bizzare that his 8 word biography is about the time he was a pacemaker for Kipchoge.

rojo wrote:

my two pennies wrote:

I mean…what else has he done? Non-track and field fans don’t care about his times because none of them are world records. They don’t care about diamond league wins or European championships. He’s not a global medalist of any kind. Don’t get me wrong, this is entirely because of his age (he was 18 at the last WC) and I’m sure he’ll make a name for himself before he’s done, but Kipchoge’s sub-2:00 marathon is the only thing that he’s been involved in that the average person would’ve heard of or cared about.

Really? Being the youngest sub-4 miler in history doesn't move the needle?

Things only americans care about:

1. Highschoolers running fast

2. Sub 4 milers

3. Highschoolers runner the mile faster than 4 minutes

Wouldn't they just say something like, "11 time gold medalist, Mo Farah"?

I mean nobody cares about the European championships or knows what a 3:28/12:48 means, but they might have heard of Kipchoge

They probably asked Jakob for his greatest accomplishment and this was his response. He looked pretty happy when Kipchoge broke 2 if I recall.

This list seems like the kind of thing that would be assigned to a very young and inexperienced staffer. Maybe an intern.

Whatever editing happened to the list was probably just about cleaning up typos & any AP style issues. And so we have this little masterpiece.

my two pennies wrote:

I mean…what else has he done? Non-track and field fans don’t care about his times because none of them are world records. They don’t care about diamond league wins or European championships. He’s not a global medalist of any kind. Don’t get me wrong, this is entirely because of his age (he was 18 at the last WC) and I’m sure he’ll make a name for himself before he’s done, but Kipchoge’s sub-2:00 marathon is the only thing that he’s been involved in that the average person would’ve heard of or cared about.

I agree with most everything you said but the average person has no idea about kipchoge at all. Let alone what he ran a marathon in. None. Zip. Zero.

what about seniors? wrote:

rojo wrote:

Really? Being the youngest sub-4 miler in history doesn't move the needle?

Things only americans care about:

1. Highschoolers running fast

2. Sub 4 milers

3. Highschoolers runner the mile faster than 4 minutes

Once again the average person, American, doesn’t care about any of those things either lol. Posters on here maybe but they are far from the average person lol.

what about seniors? wrote:

rojo wrote:

Really? Being the youngest sub-4 miler in history doesn't move the needle?

Things only americans care about:

1. Highschoolers running fast

2. Sub 4 milers

3. Highschoolers runner the mile faster than 4 minutes

I seem to recall that Jakob was pretty elated at becoming a sub 4 miler, as was Norway. If and when Jakob breaks El G's mile WR at Bislett, you will see the most ecstatic athletics crowd anywhere outside an Olympics or World Championshios for 40 years.