First Ingebrigtsen-Kerr trash talk of 2025 is here

Koltrast wrote:

Again, Jakob has not lost a single 5000m final since becoming a senior and he's facing the fastest field the sport has seen. It's very easy to rank the person who has literally never lost in a global and regional final as a senior.

Cheptegei can't beat him in a final, Gebrhiwet can't beat him in a final, Kejelcha can't beat him in a final, neither can Kiplimo, Haile Bekele, Aregawi, Barega, Katir, Krop...

Why on earth would anyone think Gebrhiwet is better than Jakob? His best results are silver in Worlds 2013, Bronze in Worlds 2015 and Bronze at Rio 2016. That's a conclusion you can only come to if you think fast times are more important than championships, and that would mean someone like Mo Ahmed or Grant Fisher is better than Jakob just because they have a faster PB.

And no, I don't have any personal grievances with Cheptegei, but you can hardly claim he shows up to the 5000 when he doesn't start more global finals than he has started.

justanothercuriousdude wrote:

Koltrast wrote:

Again, Jakob has not lost a single 5000m final since becoming a senior and he's facing the fastest field the sport has seen. It's very easy to rank the person who has literally never lost in a global and regional final as a senior.

Cheptegei can't beat him in a final, Gebrhiwet can't beat him in a final, Kejelcha can't beat him in a final, neither can Kiplimo, Haile Bekele, Aregawi, Barega, Katir, Krop...

Why on earth would anyone think Gebrhiwet is better than Jakob? His best results are silver in Worlds 2013, Bronze in Worlds 2015 and Bronze at Rio 2016. That's a conclusion you can only come to if you think fast times are more important than championships, and that would mean someone like Mo Ahmed or Grant Fisher is better than Jakob just because they have a faster PB.

And no, I don't have any personal grievances with Cheptegei, but you can hardly claim he shows up to the 5000 when he doesn't start more global finals than he has started.

I think Jakob might have been the best 5000m guy in the world in 2021 and 2022 based on his races in Florence and Eugene. And yes, also in 2023 he might have been the top guy, despite the fact that so many ran stellar times in other races than WC, and it’s hard to judge what Jakob could have done in those races time wise. Anyways -it’s not ideal to judge ones capacity based on only one single slow championship race…

One could also claim that Jakob clearly was the best in the 5000m even in 2024 -he won every race he did (3 different champs, including OG, with the best current time trailer on the start line, and with the WR holder skipping the race, despite winning the 10000m). But it’s not that easy -a fact clearly WA’s ranking shows…

Some of you guys are making straight forward predictions and conclusions based on only the positive signs, with Jonathan Gault as “the worst”. -He predicts that Jakob (based on his 7.17 and his easy global 5000m wins the last four years) will go sub 12.30 in 2025, and maybe significantly…. Well, when you stress all the things that are pro a case, and none of the cons, then one very often will fail huge. But not always; sometimes the pros are the important ones, and the cons superficially and unimportant. So Gault might be very right, but he might also be very wrong!

Best is when the best guys meet each others in their best form. But consistency, time, context and champs also count. But Jakob has never met Cheptegei, Gebrhiwet, Kejelcha, Arigawi or Kiplimo in the 5000m when these Africans were at their best -we therefore don’t know if Jakob could have kept up with them. -I’m not saying he can’t. I claim that I don’t know, and that Jakob eventually has to run fast in peak shape to settle the whole thing….

justanothercuriousdude wrote:

Koltrast wrote:

Again, Jakob has not lost a single 5000m final since becoming a senior and he's facing the fastest field the sport has seen. It's very easy to rank the person who has literally never lost in a global and regional final as a senior.

Cheptegei can't beat him in a final, Gebrhiwet can't beat him in a final, Kejelcha can't beat him in a final, neither can Kiplimo, Haile Bekele, Aregawi, Barega, Katir, Krop...

Why on earth would anyone think Gebrhiwet is better than Jakob? His best results are silver in Worlds 2013, Bronze in Worlds 2015 and Bronze at Rio 2016. That's a conclusion you can only come to if you think fast times are more important than championships, and that would mean someone like Mo Ahmed or Grant Fisher is better than Jakob just because they have a faster PB.

And no, I don't have any personal grievances with Cheptegei, but you can hardly claim he shows up to the 5000 when he doesn't start more global finals than he has started.

Best is when the best guys meet each others in their best form. But consistency, time, context and champs also count. But Jakob has never met Cheptegei, Gebrhiwet, Kejelcha, Arigawi or Kiplimo in the 5000m when these Africans were at their best -we therefore don’t know if Jakob could have kept up with them. -I’m not saying he can’t. I claim that I don’t know, and that Jakob eventually has to run fast in peak shape to settle the whole thing….

snowflakes wrote:

justanothercuriousdude wrote:

I think Jakob might have been the best 5000m guy in the world in 2021 and 2022 based on his races in Florence and Eugene. And yes, also in 2023 he might have been the top guy, despite the fact that so many ran stellar times in other races than WC, and it’s hard to judge what Jakob could have done in those races time wise. Anyways -it’s not ideal to judge ones capacity based on only one single slow championship race…

One could also claim that Jakob clearly was the best in the 5000m even in 2024 -he won every race he did (3 different champs, including OG, with the best current time trailer on the start line, and with the WR holder skipping the race, despite winning the 10000m). But it’s not that easy -a fact clearly WA’s ranking shows…

Some of you guys are making straight forward predictions and conclusions based on only the positive signs, with Jonathan Gault as “the worst”. -He predicts that Jakob (based on his 7.17 and his easy global 5000m wins the last four years) will go sub 12.30 in 2025, and maybe significantly…. Well, when you stress all the things that are pro a case, and none of the cons, then one very often will fail huge. But not always; sometimes the pros are the important ones, and the cons superficially and unimportant. So Gault might be very right, but he might also be very wrong!

Best is when the best guys meet each others in their best form. But consistency, time, context and champs also count. But Jakob has never met Cheptegei, Gebrhiwet, Kejelcha, Arigawi or Kiplimo in the 5000m when these Africans were at their best -we therefore don’t know if Jakob could have kept up with them. -I’m not saying he can’t. I claim that I don’t know, and that Jakob eventually has to run fast in peak shape to settle the whole thing….

I think Jakob was definitively the best 5000m runner in 2022 based on the field he took down and how weak the 5000m was on the circuit that year. Other than that? I wouldn’t pen him as the best in 2021. He didn’t dominate the others on the circuit with only 1 win. Cheptegei was #1 in 2021. In my opinion, Katir was the best followed by Kejelcha in 2023. Gebeiwhet in 2024 was better than Ingebrigtsen. Jakob needs to race 5000m more to be considered the best.

Koltrast wrote:

If all of the other guys Jakob faces on the circuit can't be the best for the biggest race of the season and can only show what they're capable of in paced non-championship races then that's hardly an argument in their favor.

Plenty of the Worlds and Olympics finals have had the Ethiopians work together as a group to draft off each other up front and Jakob still jogs past them without looking like he's breaking a sweat.

He's facing the fastest field the sport has seen, yet none of them wants to turn the slow championship races into a fast race, and there's a reason for that. Partly because they know Jakob is a 3:26/7:17 athlete and partly because hardly anyone in front of Jakob on the all time list has managed to put up similar times to their PBs more than once. Cheptegeis second best time is 12:41, Gebrwihets second best time is 12:42, Kejelchas second best time is 12:41...

Only Bekele has run 12:40 or faster more than once.

justanothercuriousdude wrote:

Koltrast wrote:

If all of the other guys Jakob faces on the circuit can't be the best for the biggest race of the season and can only show what they're capable of in paced non-championship races then that's hardly an argument in their favor.

Plenty of the Worlds and Olympics finals have had the Ethiopians work together as a group to draft off each other up front and Jakob still jogs past them without looking like he's breaking a sweat.

He's facing the fastest field the sport has seen, yet none of them wants to turn the slow championship races into a fast race, and there's a reason for that. Partly because they know Jakob is a 3:26/7:17 athlete and partly because hardly anyone in front of Jakob on the all time list has managed to put up similar times to their PBs more than once. Cheptegeis second best time is 12:41, Gebrwihets second best time is 12:42, Kejelchas second best time is 12:41...

Only Bekele has run 12:40 or faster more than once.

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).