jakob is good for the sport. hard not to like his confidence. its his choice to be disparaging to other runners, however, and so its ok if folks want to give him the business when he doesn't perform up to his proclamations. that said, he usually does! kudos to him, and kudos to the folks who take him down. he is leading the charge, he is the man with a target on his back, and folks are running thinking about him.
He is nothing if not straight forward about things. Wow, still shocked. Nothing this season would have led you to think he would not have put a lot of distance on Kerr in the last 150. I just never thought Jakob could have such a bad day when it mattered most. I guess this cannot happen to Kipyegon right, or the distance between her and 2nd in talent is far far greater than Jakob and the others. Really thought Yared would be right there to medal if not win in this sort of race, one with Jakob laying an egg. Kerr gets the gold and now he better go get a cheeseburger.
I'm not shocked at all. the 1500 field has got deeper and deeper over the year. I would definitely be surprised if he loses the 5k as well though
The 5k has gotten deeper to a far more ridiculous extent then the miler field. Aregawi, Cheptegei, Kejelcha, Gebrhiwet, Bekele have all been faster then 12:43, and all have good kicks (Let's remember that awesome race bewteen Kejelcha and Kiplimo where they ran a stupidly fast last 2k and ended up separated apart by less than .01 of a second running 12:41.73!)
Jacob's run 7:21 over 3k sure, he's also the fastest miler of this generation and look what happened. Even if he is capable running in the low 12:4xs, he's not the only one in the field, and those guys may also have the better kicks if the pace isn't flying. I thing especially with the 1500m performance now it's hard to declare him an easy favorite, if even the favorite in the 5k
Looking thru the splits on WA (if accurate) Laros ran 3:31.25 (1.87s behind kerr) and closed in 14.71 for the final 100, worst by far of the top 10. Nordas closed in 12.85 (1.86s faster than Laros). Meaning Laros was basically a Nordas-level close away from making it a photo finish.
Announcer on the world feed just said Jakob's had a cold all this week and may not defend his 5000 title. I don't know if that means he's not running the heat.
No, he's arrogant and disrespects his competitors; if you're going to do that, you better the hell be able to back it up. If he acted like Josh Kerr I can assure you myself and probably most, if not all, others are not going to be reveling in his comeuppance the way we are today.
Its incredible how someone with a little bit if personality makes you guys clutch your pearls.
Why do we have to keep doing this? We're not talking about a 'little bit of personality', we're talking about someone at least who is IHMO and arrogant and disrespectful prick to his competition. There are plenty of people out there with a 'little bit of personality' that I personally love. No one is 'clutching their pearls here'; not going to apologize for finding someone like Jakob easy to dislike and root against.