Arranging one race every other year (like OG/WC)is seemingly a smart thing to do in order to decide who’s the best athlete the current year. -The thought here is that all the athletes peak at this specific race, and that the best therefore propels to the win. And that we as spectators get to view a highly anticipated and exciting race. And yes, sometimes this clearly is the case (Rudisha London 2012, Cheruiyot Doha 2019, but also winners that didn’t front run the whole race).
But there’s a lot of problems with the logic above, and therefore the WA never automatically declares the gold champions as the best -they rate the global champs as the most valuable single race, but they also evaluate other elements (races) to decide the ranking. Rightly, in my opinion…
Take a look on last years Olympic 1500m in Paris. -Seemingly a model example for a perfect situation to decide who was the best at the day; all the best athletes were very near peak form, nobody had accidents and none did grey area running. So did the best runner win? Of course not -the best runner placed fourth! But what about the best racer; did he win? Again; probably no. -It was so close, that I would say that the most lucky racer won…
In my opinion Cole Hocker was a good racer as any of the three first in this race, but not better. That made him a deserved winner, but Kerr and Nuguse would have been likely deserved winners. -The two latter didn’t win mostly because of coincidences, in my view… Saying that one could maybe criticise Kerr for a too hard first lap, and taking the #two position before the last bend despite knowing (should have known) lacking stamina to pass Jakob in the bend / that Jakob would bully him out in line 2 in the bend. But all that is too easy to say hindsight…
I may be wrong (placing too much stress on how good Jakob said he felt his legs were in lap one) but I think Jakob was a 3.25 high that day (with 1450m theoretically pacing from some others) and the three medalist 3.28 mid with normal pacing. But I’m fine by calling Hocker the best that day if one means racer and not runner, but I wouldn’t at all hang my head if I was Kerr or Nuguse. My point however is this: The best doesn’t get his best out in every race -we must therefore find the different athletes’ best races and compare… And I might be wrong, but ask Cole and Yared who was the best (in the 1500m) in 2024, and I think they both without hesitation would say Jakob…
So to the 5000m that is far more complicated: I’m not a 100% sure that Jakob is better than 12.48 in the 5000m, or ever will be. But I’m 95% sure…
I think Jakob could have done everything he did in the 5000m in 2021-2024 by being a 12.48 guy with supreme 1500m speed, freakish hot temperature abilities, and his nearest competitors far from their peaks…
Saying this above, my best guess however is that Jakob is a 12.38 guy, and thus on a shared third place among current (5k) distance runners. But I would give 5% to the Gault scenario and 5% to Jakob being without talent for the 5k, and only a 12.48 guy… (And totally without talent for the 10k and HM).