It's kind of funny looking back at posts on this thread. This was before he got sick and unfortunately couldn't run the cursa del nassos 5k road race, or run the 3000m indoors in Madrid. He ran a respectable 3:32 in Lievin but placed his chips on the european indoor champs and won the double there.
There are a ton of terrible takes in this thread, most notably by Bad Wigins the WOAT. Little did we know that 7:24.90 would be beyond easy for this guy. Even Girma broke this record at the same meet Jakob ran 3:32. However, between 2022 to 2023, Jakob made a huge jump that I don't think anybody in this thread expected, including Salvitore. We got a glimpse of it in 2022 with his 3:46.46 mile and subsequent 3:29s in zurich+laussane, but the next year was in all intents and purposes historic. An insane string of performances: 7:54.1 for two miles for a 7:19 3k equivalent, 3:27.95, 3:28.72, 3:27.14 for 1500m, 4:43 for 2000m, and 3:43.73 + 7:23.63 for a two day double that is frankly underappreciated. He virtually improved an every single mark that Stitchmo cited here other than the 5k. The following year, after a devastating injury that cut his base training in half, he improved on his 1500m mark for 3:26.73, and improved his 3k mark for 7:17.55.
In the context of what some of you guys wanted in this thread, What Jakob accomplished in two years was phenomenal and completely exceeded what many of you wanted, but I have a feeling that you lot expect too much from him. I can see it with Stitchmo too who I feel as though has changed his views on these things and expects even more from Jakob. Let's not forget that these records Jakob is chasing are from 20-30 years ago from an non EPO testing era. What does Jakob truly have to accomplish to be the greatest ever? He already has three of these records? Stitchmo do you still hold these beliefs in your original post?
The biggest elephant in the room are Jakob's struggles in 1500m Championships. Trolls love to rag on him here but I really do feel like he has gotten unlucky each time. (Awful tactics in Eugene, Sickness in Budapest, again bad tactics in Paris). The last one really stings, like Salvitore pointed out, this was his chance to become immortal, joining two historic clubs at once (1500m+5000m Olympic Golds and 2x 1500m Golds). He did accomplish one of those things, but his failure in Paris in my mind is the ONLY dent right now in his career. He has virtually been perfect with the 5000m golds and his PBs throughout 1500m-5000m. The only things he needs at this point are one more olympic gold in the 1500m and in the 10000m. Pavvo Nurmi was the last runner to have this kind of hardware (3 golds across 3 Olympic Games in every event from the 1500m - 10000m) and he retired a century ago. If Jakob improved his 5k mark to 12:40 and did this, can he retire as the greatest ever? Does he still need more 5k/10k titles? Keep in mind that he is going up against EPO era greatness, I really don't know at this point what he needs to do, but in my mind he has been great and we should appreciate his work over the last three years since this thread.