Ingrebritsen sounds like he'll never be happy

"Will haunt me for the rest of my life" vs keep him up at night are two different things.
Look at all the photos with him and family (wife or brothers) - always happy. I think he lives pretty good (and happy) life.

He knows he's doping so can never really have a feeling of achievement

Jakob is the Tom Brady of distance running. Brady always said the Super Bowl loses haunted him and kept him coming back. He may have won 7 times but he also lost 3 times, including 2 crushing loses to the Giants (once in a season where the Patriots were undefeated). A true champion keeps coming back and figures out a way to win. this is Jakob’s mindset and he won’t relent for 2028.

In fairness, he's Norwegian, they're all like that.

I kid, I kid, it's just your standard athlete's mentality. He hates to lose, they all do, and I'm sure getting blown right off the podium in the final 100 of the event where he was defending champion hurts a lot more than most losses.

He is a perfectionist. No knock on Jakob his expectation is best in the world nothing less. And the key thing to him if you listen to what he says it's how he wins that's important to him. He has the Prefontaine mentality of breaking his opponents through front running. Easier said than done obviously his last 3 races over Worlds 2022 2023 and last weeks Olympic 1500m races show that. But this obsession is what makes him tick and I respect him for that

This is letsrun.com - the home of "you will never be good enough even if you set world records, win olympic medals or run fast cause we keyboard warriors are better than all of you combined and we never fail and we're perfect, bow down to us"

Jim Ryun once said something like he was surprised that his coach was already talking about what he would do to run even faster when he first saw him after he set his first world record. He did not dwell on the achievement and there was no real rest after a job well done.

Never being satisfied, always trying to improve and get better even after one becomes the very best in the world is what makes a champion a champion.

No one ever runs an absolutely perfect race.

Some of the best athletes hate, and even fear, losing far more than they enjoy winning. I don’t think it lends itself to making the athletes happy, but it keeps them hungry and is what makes them great:

But, Jim Ryun is one the acknowledged great middle distance runners of all time.

i agree it's downright silly to say it'll haunt him for the rest of his life. if he drastically underperformed, didn't make the final, made some huge mistake, or wasn't tough enough, THEN i would understand his perspective. i would have it too. but when you give your absolute best - which no one can say he didn't - and there are 3 other all time great milers who happen to sneak by you, it isn't failure. nothing is failure when you give your all and you're confident you were at your best that day. now i know he said he went out too hard. maybe going out slower lets him win or get bronze, but i doubt it. older runners have this more mature perspective, often when they reach their 30s, i hope he does one day too. not to mention, he's the best 5k runner in the world right now.

He looked pretty content being back at home mowing the lawn yesterday..

How does anyone become Oly champ without what others term "obsession?" OK so Jakob manifests this to the n-th degree and is also more plain-spoken about his plans, aims and goals than most athletes. Jakob is not guarded by the same PC-speak that governs US-media centric and media-aware athletes.

But he's far from unique. Let's get real. Syd is absolutely no different - "obsessed" "driven" "compelled" etc. but she moderates her public statements, credits the Lord, and Kersee, rather than her own plans, training etc.

Even Clown shares these traits but he manifests in public in a different manner than both Jakob and Syd.

I agree about the 5000m.

About the 1500m: He might prove you wrong in 9 days in Lausanne.

I don’t think it’s very superficially, I’m pretty obsessed with psychology especially in the area of ASPD/NPD/BPD, and I’m also pretty obsessed with track and field meaning I watch just about any interview with Jakob that I can find.. and the outward traits/behaviors he displays make it seem pretty obvious to me. Always an excuse as to why he didn’t win, usually in a way that puts those that beat him down. He tends to speak poorly of those that do beat him or discredit their performances.

Insinuating i’m a malignant narcissist (which as you know includes psychopathy and sadism along with the general narcissistic traits) for coming up with a fairly reasonable explanation as to why losing a race potentially effects Jakob as much as it does is some pretty strong “pot calling the kettle black” behavior using your own reasoning though.

I never even called Jakob a malignant narcissist, so I don’t really understand why you are using traits of malign narcissism to discredit my post.

Lmao but I find it pretty obvious he can beat 12:35 pretty candidly with pacers and strong aerobic training for some time. 2-mile world record has still been his most impressive run, and it is a strong indicator of 5k strength.

Go back and read the comment, the guy directly addresses your point:

Jacob has a certain style that suggests, for him, Everyday is like Sunday
Everyday is silent and grey

Reminds me of that guy in the (original) movie, "The Heartbreak Kid".

He got everything he wanted, but at the end of the movie, he's sitting on the couch, and you can see the unhappiness in his face.

On the flip side of the coin, you have people that sing, "I got plenty of nothin', and nothin's plenty fo me", and those people are content.

Different mindsets.

people have been saying that for years and he's never even tried, what's that tell you? Either A) he's not interested or B) he can't.

In reality both. He knows better than anyone what he can or can't do. If he thought he could, he would try.