We’re very old school with how we approach it from having a bit more speed. In championship races that always gives you a chance. So it’s tough for Jakob. You’d rather be in our situation.
They just don't get him. Jakob talked about this multiple times - he doesn't want a chance to win, he wants to dominate from the front. For him it's either gold or last place, nothing in between. He's very explicit that he in fact DOESN'T want to be in their situation.
WHAT? This is the very situation that allows Jakob to win the 5000m. So of course Jakob would love to be in that situation in the 1500m but he is not, so he adopts a strategy which he thinks best suits his strengths in both races, and the strategy is not the same.
I'm the biggest Jakob fan in the world but that's what people without a kick say. They have to say it.
When Jakob runs the 5000, he doesn't dominate from the front. He's more than happy to come from behind there as his kick in that race is very good.
Do you remember how he set his pb and won in Florence in 12:48? Let me remind you.
The Norwegian, who had sagged off the pace and found himself over two seconds back of the lead at 3k (7:44.6 for Cheptegei, 7:46.7 for Ingebrigtsen), rallied over the final mile and outsprinted Olympic bronze medalist Hagos Gebriwhet of Ethiopia down the home straight to win in 12:48.45 — a European record that makes Ingebrigtsen the fastest non-African-born runner of all time (12th-fastest overall). Ingebrigtsen won with a 56.1 final 400 (27.4 final 200).
In the 5000, Jakob may be like Kerr/Wightman in the 1500 - not the best in time trials but incredible in championship races. Jakob doesn't run a lot of DL 5000s so it's hard to say how he is in a TT 5000. Is he best in the world at that? I don't know.
You haven’t heard what Jakob himself has said about the 5000m: He doesn’t want to win by a kick. He wants to win from the front, and make the race an honest one (F.ex like in WC 2022 5000m). In 2021 he hadn’t experience enough to try his 2022 vision, and in 2023 he was sick…
Saying that Jakob hasn’t a kick in the 1500m is just the opposite of reality -he is the best kicker of them all. But if he makes the 1500m (slow) look like an 800m (after a “700m “jog”) of course he will be out kicked by the better 800m runners…
The Guardian's Sean Ingle flew over to Boston to catch up with Jake Wightman, the 2022 1500 world champ and watch him run at the New Balance Indoor Games. The feature story is now out and is worth a read.
“In theory, if he goes as hard as he can, he might run 3:26 or 3:27 from the front and we wouldn’t be able to live with that. But the chances of it going wrong are far higher than Josh and I getting burnt off...
“When it comes to the championship races, we have big strengths. We don’t train the Norwegian way, with the double threshold runs like the other guys. We’re very old school with how we approach it from having a bit more speed. In championship races that always gives you a chance. So it’s tough for Jakob. You’d rather be in our situation. Because we know how he likes to run and we are able to react to what he tries to do."
What do you think of the quotes?
Here's a question for the Letsrun wannabe coaches. If you were a coach and I told you, "I've got good news. You can coach any of the following men for 2024 - Wightman, Kerr or Ingebrigtsen - who do you want? Oh yeah, one more thing, there is some bad news. If your athlete doesn't win the 1500 gold, you will be executed."
Well Kerr was world class when he was fat. He acts like he's some sort of mind guru, but really he's just freakishly talented, and finally became dedicated to diet.
Kerr has the highest ceiling of those 3, probably equally talented is Nuguse, but he is massively disadvantaged by his coaching situation.
You make a decent point here. Kerr is not that much faster than Ingebrigtsen at 800 - 145 vs 146. Wightman is a 1:43 guy. That's a whole other level.
There is a reason why Wightman leads Kerr head to head 6 to 4 at 1500. Now I know Kerr has two global medals and Jake only 1.
Most of the time in the 1500 as John Kellogg likes to say, the 1500 results end up in the order of their PRs even it's slow if they run it right. I'd like to see Jakob try to run some slow 1500s and see what happens.
In a slow 1500 like say Rio, I think Jakob has a good chance of sitting on Kerr and still beating him. Just wait until the last 150 to take the lead. As for Wightman? I'm not sure.
Rewatch the semis in WC 2023 and you will see what Jakob can do in a “slow” 1500m…
Jakob if 100% healthy will just pull another Herb Elliott type win. Championship this and that is BS, why sit and kick if you can put it in the bag before the final bell? I hate how people automatically assume running slow and sprinting the last 400 is championship racing, that's just the cowards way to do it. People need to grow a pair and take the bull by the horns.
Completely agree. I have a hard time understanding why so many people think that running a slower time makes you a better racer. The point of racing is to see who gets form point A to point B fastest.
The rent free thing would make sense if he wasn't 0-3 since winning once.
The fashion in which he won in 2020 indicates he isn't as dominant as some of you would like to believe. He's a strength based 1500 guy who is going to be great at time trialing and being in the mix. The speed guys who WILL still be around during the last lap will beat him just about every time. No secret here
Not at all -in a fast race it’s never about speed in the home straight. It’s about strength. Take a look at what Jakob says about these things, and watch some fast races.
The rent free thing would make sense if he wasn't 0-3 since winning once.
The fashion in which he won in 2020 indicates he isn't as dominant as some of you would like to believe. He's a strength based 1500 guy who is going to be great at time trialing and being in the mix. The speed guys who WILL still be around during the last lap will beat him just about every time. No secret here
It’s not 0-3 since 2021 (and this number is also very destorted since he was sick in two of them) -he has had to Euros in 2022 /23 vs Katir (WC 1500m medalist and Romeo Garcia-4th WC) and out kicked both easily from the front. But he wasn’t sick then!
The rent free thing would make sense if he wasn't 0-3 since winning once.
The fashion in which he won in 2020 indicates he isn't as dominant as some of you would like to believe. He's a strength based 1500 guy who is going to be great at time trialing and being in the mix. The speed guys who WILL still be around during the last lap will beat him just about every time. No secret here
It’s not 0-3 since 2021 (and this number is also very destorted since he was sick in two of them) -he has had to Euros in 2022 /23 vs Katir (WC 1500m medalist and Romeo Garcia-4th WC) and out kicked both easily from the front. But he wasn’t sick then!
0-3? huh? did you skip math class. the 2020 olympics were held in 2021 bud
I guess you skipped reading comprehension in 2nd grade. Should've been skip buddies I needed a lookout.
oh duh. my apologies. i did skip that class. we were on the same side. apologies friend. jakey's dumb comment sent me into a frenzied tilt and i apologize for taking it out on you. you were right and i was wrong.
It’s not 0-3 since 2021 (and this number is also very destorted since he was sick in two of them) -he has had to Euros in 2022 /23 vs Katir (WC 1500m medalist and Romeo Garcia-4th WC) and out kicked both easily from the front. But he wasn’t sick then!
He sounds like a very sickly person.
No, he just races 3-4 times more champs than Kerr and Wightman (who don’t do indoors WC and Euros or the many Euros outdoors, and don’t do other events) so statistically he will hit some champs sick…
Kerr said he was sick for the ‘22 Comm Games for what it’s worth. And he skipped the European Games for illness (perhaps COVID) as it was. So that’s 2/3 in 2022.
When Josh and Jake are sick (f.ex during the many Euros -indoors, outdoors, xc, or indoors WC) we don’t even know it, because they hadn’t planned to participate anyways..
And Jakob doesn’t necessarily DNS if sick -he has won Euros xc with a cold and WC 2023 5000m after being dizzy all day. -A little more visible than athletes we don’t see if you ask me… Not a sickly weak person in my book…-If that was what you meant (or maybe a weak liar..?)
I think it's unlikely the podium will be Jakob/Kerr/Whiteman in whatever order. Not becuase they arent all great runners, but becuase there are likely to be another handful in the mix very tightly and a couple of meters of positioning, a couple of meters of fitness plus or minus, suggests that there are numerous realistic medal permutations. I'm sure that whatever goes on in the minds of athletics world champs, it is not that sort of 'on the one hand/on the other hand' approach, hence we see the sort of statements from the guys being discussed. They won't look at the start list and think ' wow, this one's stacked'.
I'm too lazy, on this thread at least, to check how many guys of 30+ have medalled at global 1500m outdoors in last 25 years but I think very few indeed.
Isn't Nordas the one on the fastest upward curve at this very sharp end?
Yes, that’s correct. But if we throw in Euro champs golds, and maybe a couple of golds from other WC events I think the picture would look somewhat different..
But I really liked Jake’s analysis -intelligent and well balanced. But I would rather go for Jakob’s way (in the latter’s situation)…
Everyone would rather be the 3:27 guy versus 3:29😁 the problems come if you are only in 3:28 shape(like cause you were injured in January) Or if there are a couple 3:28 guys in the race.
and man will this discussion be funny if Kerr or Wightman don’t make the Olympic team. Gourley, Giles, mills, and Stonier are all only a few strides back…
Yes, that’s correct. But if we throw in Euro champs golds, and maybe a couple of golds from other WC events I think the picture would look somewhat different..
But I really liked Jake’s analysis -intelligent and well balanced. But I would rather go for Jakob’s way (in the latter’s situation)…
Everyone would rather be the 3:27 guy versus 3:29😁 the problems come if you are only in 3:28 shape(like cause you were injured in January) Or if there are a couple 3:28 guys in the race.
and man will this discussion be funny if Kerr or Wightman don’t make the Olympic team. Gourley, Giles, mills, and Stonier are all only a few strides back…
I think it's unlikely the podium will be Jakob/Kerr/Whiteman in whatever order. Not becuase they arent all great runners, but becuase there are likely to be another handful in the mix very tightly and a couple of meters of positioning, a couple of meters of fitness plus or minus, suggests that there are numerous realistic medal permutations. I'm sure that whatever goes on in the minds of athletics world champs, it is not that sort of 'on the one hand/on the other hand' approach, hence we see the sort of statements from the guys being discussed. They won't look at the start list and think ' wow, this one's stacked'.
I'm too lazy, on this thread at least, to check how many guys of 30+ have medalled at global 1500m outdoors in last 25 years but I think very few indeed.
Isn't Nordas the one on the fastest upward curve at this very sharp end?
at some point there will be some east africans back in the mix, likely soon
Either that or try running like a really fast 200 mid-race to gap the field mid-race. Then everyone behind him would not be able to draft off of him.
Everyone expects Jakob to go out in the back for the first 200 and then take the lead at 300. What if he did what Kiprop did and ran the first 400 in like 53. Or the 2nd 400 in 53. Just try to gap them so they don't have the rabbit advantage. If you are Wightman, you'd have to pray that someone like Nuguse (not that Katir is gone) tried to bridge the gap and gives you a chance. It probably wipes out Nuguse if he goes for it but if they don't then the race is Jakob's.
I think this is all just overthinking it at least vis a vis Kerr/Wightman.
2022: He's in 3:28ish shape and allows the race to slow down . He makes a couple of tactical blunders (fending off surges from the Kenyans, letting Jake get by him at 200). Jake gets a step on him with the pass, and Jakob does his best but he's not passing him in a 100m sprint.
2023: He WAS in 3:27 shape, but he doesn't run like it. He sets the stage for a 3:29 race (with a kick) again, and then he actually does run tactically smart. He doesn't let Kerr go by. But his kick is so weak he runs out of gas and almost gets beat by Nordas. We find out he was sick.
In 2022, he was probably not good enough to execute his frontrun strategy and made several blunders. In 2023, he didn't even really try with his slow setup to the last lap. So, we've yet to see him actually try to run away. I don't think 800m speed figures into all this at all. He simply needs to make an actually fast race where guys won't be able to hold hard moves from 200m out.
Jakob lost in 2022 because of all the tactical errors mid-race that drained his energy. It’s wrong to say he “let” Wightman pass because at that point in the race he couldn’t prevent it. He had his stride checked during that pass which effectively decided their finishing order. Wightman won because he was a 3:29 guy with more energy and better positioning at the end. It had nothing to do with his superior speed.
In 2023 Jakob was sick and it showed. He couldn’t push the 3rd lap and tried to save something for the end but it wasn’t enough. His final 300 was awful by his standards, slower than his final 300 when he ran 3:27.14 if I’m not mistaken (remember that official splits from Budapest are wrong).
In top shape it looks like he could put the hammer down on the 3rd lap and win convincingly in 3:27-high/3:28-low. I think winding it up from 700-800 out a la El Guerrouj is low-risk and actually gives him his best chance to win, but it’s unlikely he’ll do this per his recent comments.
The mistake is thinking that he has to lead because he is so much slower than the others. His semifinal in Budapest (3:35 comfortably closing in 51-high) should have put that to rest, but most letsrun posters have short memories. Of course, Jakob is just one of the many guys capable of closing a 3:40 race in 50 seconds, so there’s no reason for him to go this route when pushing the pace will neutralize a lot of potential kickers and cut the number of challengers down considerably.
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