We've merged three threads on Jakob's post-race comments into 1. One other thread was entitled, "Jakob: "Competing with a cold: probably not the best medicine. 🤔 Not showing up: not an option, unless half dead." The third thread was titled, "Jakob criticizes Hocker’s cross training- “that’s very strange”.
No excuses for 2022 Worlds; no excuses for Paris 2024, the latter must obviously sting really, really badly for him and he'll probably never truly get over it.
Post OG runs a 3:28, then, around a week later shatters a 25 year old WR thought by many to be way out there. I'd have been surprised if he hadn't gotten a bit sick after all that effort. It was obvious that he wasn't 100% during yesterday's race, you could see his movement was a bit off already after the first quarter...
he was extremely fit and healthy for the 1500 final and said as much…
he fully sent it in Paris and misjudged himself and ate sh$&. It happens but he owned it.
let me ask all of you a question: if you were him (arguably most famous current male track share/along with Mondo), you’re paid big money to show up and compete at these meets, you get sick after you run likely the performance of your life (7:17), you get a nasty infection, people still are counting on you to run fast and do amazing rings, what would you do,say…? Remember, you’re in the public eye 24/7 and you have been since you were like 14 years old…cut the kid some slack.
He was not ill when he lost to Wightman in Eugene, nor when he finished 4th in Paris, and didn’t claim to be in either case. Keep pushing that narrative though.
OK, I'm not a fan of his consistent arrogance, but by no means am I a Jakob-hater: I admire his consistent willingness to turn up and race, like McSweyn I enjoy how he rarely lets a 1500 be slow and is never afraid to front-run, and I respect what he has done both for the event, but also his influence on training methods for seemingly most pro's and club runners nowadays (not saying he invented double-T ofc). That being said...
These excuses have to stop. The injury over the winter was obviously serious and he's done very well to come back from that + run a 3:45 mile so soon after, but outside of that, every time he gets beaten there is some underlying excuse, and it's moved from reactionary comments to now preemptively before the race. And I think this has done exactly as intended because I listened to the LR post-race recap last night and Rojo and Jon both weren't objective in their assessment of this race, because they'd heard before it that he had been somewhat ill, so within the first 300m had written off the race as 'yeah but he's ill'.
Covid, Illness, Covid, infection. I cant even be bothered to go back and find all the different excuses but there has been one for every single loss.
Sometimes your legs just aren't there on the day, sometimes you mess your taper, sometime others are just better at peaking for a single event, but Jakob cant accept that, or the fact that anyone else could beat him fairly, every time has to be caveated by him being afflicted by something, or taking shots that he led them for most the race. Do you know how many of Jakob's competitors turn up to events when they've been ill or carrying a niggle? No, because they don't immediately run to the press room to tell everyone to sooth their own ego.
Pre-race press conference, post-race interview(s), IG post the same night, all making sure everyone knows that this result doesnt count because he was ill. Do you know who else was ill the other week? NUGUSE.
This feels like Eliud after he lost London or Boston. He's undoubtedly one of the best athletes and 8-9x/10 will win the race, but he is not invincible, and just as we saw Eliud falter in some races and a new 2:00 kid appear on the scene, Jakob is not some undisputed and infallible racer, but he can't seem to process that so he puts an asterisk next to any loss. This is some real freshman behaviour and I'm bored of it because you hear endlessly the same childish attitude from hobbyjoggers at your local race who have to come up with some convoluted reason why they weren't amazing that day.
Jakob tries to understand and explain a lot of what’s going on around him -for most of us that makes him an interesting and honest and entertaining person. But if you claim a theory that he is a ego weak and inflated athlete of course you then will judge his explanation as excuses…
I don’t think Jakob has an insecure ego -I think he knows a lot of his own strengths and limitations. And he is so good that he doesn’t have to make up things to boost his ego falsely…
There’s a lot of situations where Jakob’s explanations clearly can’t be excuses: He takes it all on him self, and stresses that he made tactically errors. And this aligns with what most of us posters here also think…
When Jakob is sick he clearly is sick -you can’t explain the difference between his Lausanne DL win and this Zurich DL with “just having a bad day” when he is reported sick throughout the week between. And your logic also seems flawed: Why not posing an accuse instead prior to Lausanne DL where he could be insecure after the OG loss (and then meeting the champ Hocker) -why making up a sickness claim after his confidence boost in Lausanne and Silesia (WR)? Don’t you see that your theory doesn’t fit in with the context? And don’t you see that athletes in general are truth worthy when they claim sickness in OG (Beamish and Lyles) or injuries (Cheruiyot in Tokyo OG)? Why on earth do you think runners are ego weak liars?
Kerr's criticism of Jakob's race planning is legitimate. He did make an excuse in Paris, that he misjudged it. Calling Kerr just the next guy wasn't sporting. The way to lose is to recognize the performance and say he was the best man in the day.
It is becoming a 'unculture' in Norwegian press (and athletic culture). They prime events by emphasizing, often as the main headline on national news, that athlete X or Y has a cold or niggle or something prior to the race. It is a perfect strategy. If X or Y wins, they can scream about how they dominated the competition despite their illness, that are just that d*mn good. If they lose, it's not reflective of anything, it's just bad luck. I can't remember a broadcast when I haven't heard about Henrik's, Filip's, Jakob's, Karsten's, Karoline's etc. various illnesses and injuries during their warmups for races. Of course, NRK, VG, Tv2 etc do not know, nor care, if their international competitors have colds or whatever, and it will not be made an issue of on Norwegian news.
It is a bad habit. I think if you have a cold or something, but feel well-enough to race, you should be respectful enough of your competition to not mention your cold. Just say you weren't physically better to them that day. Otherwise, you are automatically planting doubt about your competitor's acheivement. That said, Jakob did not make any such excuse after Paris.
excuses excuses excuses, he always seems to be sick when he loses
and Kerr was right, Jakob is surrounded by yes men who will post on letsrun to try and protect him when he loses, and downvote any post that criticizes Jakob
Jakob has two Olympic gold medals and multiple world records. He doesn’t need any excuses, he’s already one of the all time greats even if he loses occasionally
Exactly. If anyone wants to believe that the guy who ran 7:17 two weeks prior was not impacted by the cold, knock yourself out. But none of it really matters anyway. He could run 3:50 in his next 1500, that doesn't take away from what he's done this season.
He did make an excuse in Paris, that he misjudged it.
You can't be serious. Then anything other than "everything went perfectly" is an excuse. Then every single runner of all times is full of excuses, because guess what - there are no perfect races. Do you even run?
Do you know how many of Jakob's competitors turn up to events when they've been ill or carrying a niggle? No, because they don't immediately run to the press room to tell everyone to sooth their own ego.
He's been talking about being sick for more than a week before this race, genius
People rip Jakob for making excuses, but he certainly didn't look like himself on the last lap tonight in Zurich and I appreciate him telling us he's sick when he is sick. I believe him when he said he was sick in Budapest and I believe him now, but it doesn't change the fact that he was beaten in those races.
I'm glad Ingebrigtsen showed up and am glad he gave it a go even if he was not fully recovered. Only complaint: you can't say "first and foremost: a great performance by Nuguse" when it's actually the third thing you mention. =)
I also found Nuguse's response interesting: "Looking forward to go at it for real in Brussels 🙌🏾"
What sort of rubbish reporting is this when everyone who watched live heard the commentator say before the race that he was sick, and been feeling off since the 3,000m...or did you not pay attention in class?
He could have DNS-ed and then you would probably say the same crap
Kerr's criticism of Jakob's race planning is legitimate. He did make an excuse in Paris, that he misjudged it. Calling Kerr just the next guy wasn't sporting. The way to lose is to recognize the performance and say he was the best man in the day.
I think most people interpret the word “excuse” as “a false or weak explanation”. But if Jakob gave an explanation that seems logical and trustworthy then it’s not an accuse, IMO…
Jakob congratulated Josh in 2023, and clearly acknowledged that he couldn’t beat him because he was better that day. But what you, and Kerr, don’t like is that Jakob was honest about being sick. You clearly think that was an accuse, but it wasn’t, because that explanation (sickness) wasn’t false, and there was no way Jakob could hide his sickness -he was up to running a 5000m later, and the matter had to be discussed. But it was not Kerr’s fault, and it put him in an awkward position…
6 sub-3:30s for Nuguse? I think it’s 5 if you count the ST from his 3:43.97 and 4 if you don’t (and you probably shouldn’t for these purposes). Oslo ‘23, Monaco ‘24, Paris ‘24, Zurich ‘24.
It is becoming a 'unculture' in Norwegian press (and athletic culture). They prime events by emphasizing, often as the main headline on national news, that athlete X or Y has a cold or niggle or something prior to the race. It is a perfect strategy. If X or Y wins, they can scream about how they dominated the competition despite their illness, that are just that d*mn good. If they lose, it's not reflective of anything, it's just bad luck. I can't remember a broadcast when I haven't heard about Henrik's, Filip's, Jakob's, Karsten's, Karoline's etc. various illnesses and injuries during their warmups for races. Of course, NRK, VG, Tv2 etc do not know, nor care, if their international competitors have colds or whatever, and it will not be made an issue of on Norwegian news.
It is a bad habit. I think if you have a cold or something, but feel well-enough to race, you should be respectful enough of your competition to not mention your cold. Just say you weren't physically better to them that day. Otherwise, you are automatically planting doubt about your competitor's acheivement. That said, Jakob did not make any such excuse after Paris.
Exactly. I find it hugely disrespectful to Nuguse (or if anyone else had won) to start wittering on about a cold the week before then his Instagram post afterwards. Either you’re well enough to race or not. Why bother if you’re not able to give it your best shot.
Just so everyone can praise you for ‘always turning up’.
Athletes are allowed to have a race schedule that doesn’t include every race. They are allowed to focus on something as huge as the Olympics and then have a dip in performance afterwards. That’s all normal. But he needs to stop being disrespectful to those that beat him.
At least he made no excuses for the Olympics (that everyone focused on peaking for).
I’ve posted this elsewhere, but I don’t understand why people are so obsessed with what Ingebrigtsen or Kerr, might say. The story begins and ends with race results.
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