After that convincing Millrose win, I think every race from this point on he should be the favorite to win. Am I wrong?
It's Kiplimo and it's not really close. Hocker is more mid-distance/distance. If you said who's the best 1500/5000, sure. So maybe just a disagreement on definition.
The title "#1 distance runner in the world right now" goes to the reigning simultaneous WORLD XC TRIPLE CHAMPION and CHICAGO MARATHON CHAMPION, with 7:26/12:40/26:33/56:52 ... over a sit-and-kicker who has barely broken 13:00.
If they both retired tomorrow, Kiplimo would end up in the World Athletics hall of fame.
If he quit today, Hocker and his flukes would be forgotten. He has a fluke win in the Oly 1500, the WC 1500, and then his next-best global finish is... 6th lol. THAT'S IT.
Hocker's championship wins aren't flukes. In the Tokyo 5000m he humiliated the field in one of the fastest races and final 400s in WC history, only behind the legendary 2003 race.
Paris, well, I guess closing a 3:27 with 53 after getting your stride chopped is a fluke.
Jacob Kiplimo is way better than Hocker. Silver in London, Gold in Chicago, absolutely obliterated the field at World XC, unbeatable in the half marathon, etc. He's also an amazing teammate.
Hocker is very slightly better than his peers. And if Jakob gets healthy, that could change. Kiplimo is on another level.
After that convincing Millrose win, I think every race from this point on he should be the favorite to win. Am I wrong?
It's Kiplimo and it's not really close. Hocker is more mid-distance/distance. If you said who's the best 1500/5000, sure. So maybe just a disagreement on definition.
Correct.
The OP said "#1 distance runner" and that is Kiplimo.
Jacob Kiplimo is way better than Hocker. Silver in London, Gold in Chicago, absolutely obliterated the field at World XC, unbeatable in the half marathon, etc. He's also an amazing teammate.
Hocker is very slightly better than his peers. And if Jakob gets healthy, that could change. Kiplimo is on another level.
So he lost to Sawe in London, and in Copenhagen before that. His primary event is now the marathon and he might be second best at it. So why is he “way better” when Hocker might be the best in his two events. I know XC and Half Marathons count, but they are not his A-tier event (once the 10,000, now the marathon).
Track results matter most, and Kiplimo never won gold on the track. Last time we saw Kiplimo on the track with the big dogs, he finished 8th in Paris. An afterthought. Can't be #1 without any track gold on your mantle.
Please.
The "big dogs" run cross country. Specifically, World XC, which has been won by anyone with a GOAT claim: Geb, Tergat, Bekele, etc all raced World XC.
Kiplimo has won the hardest race in the world, three times.
Hocker is scared to race it.
Selectively referencing Kiplimo's place in his final track face is a weak argument. This was long after he moved from track to the roads; Kiplimo ran 57:xx or 58:xx for the HM every single year from 2020 onward, including in winning the World HM in 2020.
What have they done lately? Let's see...
Hocker's times and honors, 2025:
3:30 / 7:23 / 12:57 [Kiplimo ran 12:40 in 2024] WC Gold (5000) [Weak race; 2nd place was Isaac Kimeli of Belgium, 12:58.30 to 12:58.78]
The "big dogs" run cross country. Specifically, World XC, which has been won by anyone with a GOAT claim: Geb, Tergat, Bekele, etc all raced World XC.
Kejelcha, John Korir and Sawe didn’t run it this year. So the three other contenders for the title of best distance runner outside of Hocker/Kiplimo didn’t in fact. Kiplimo is probably the best XC runner, but he needs to become the clear marathon no 1 for your claims.
Jacob Kiplimo is way better than Hocker. Silver in London, Gold in Chicago, absolutely obliterated the field at World XC, unbeatable in the half marathon, etc. He's also an amazing teammate.
Hocker is very slightly better than his peers. And if Jakob gets healthy, that could change. Kiplimo is on another level.
So why is he “way better” when Hocker might be the best in his two events. I know XC and Half Marathons count, but they are not his A-tier event (once the 10,000, now the marathon).
If you had to bet your house, which bet would you take?
Kiplimo to win World XC
vs
Hocker to win the 1500 at Worlds
(We know which bet paid off in 2025.)
Hocker's best event is the 1500, and he has won that exactly once with four years to try (2021 Oly, 2022 WC, 2023 WC, 2024 Oly). He also beat Isaac Kimeli by 0.48s to win the 2025 WC 5000. Two major wins in five years.
In the same timeframe, Kiplimo has taken global wins: World XC x3, World HM x1. And won the Chicago marathon in 2:02:23.
The "big dogs" run cross country. Specifically, World XC, which has been won by anyone with a GOAT claim: Geb, Tergat, Bekele, etc all raced World XC.
Kejelcha, John Korir and Sawe didn’t run it this year. So the three other contenders for the title of best distance runner outside of Hocker/Kiplimo didn’t in fact. Kiplimo is probably the best XC runner, but he needs to become the clear marathon no 1 for your claims.
Why?
Kiplimo is the clear world #1 in the HM and XC. AND WORLD ATHLETICS RANKS HIM #1 IN THE WORLD FOR ROAD RUNNING.
Hocker is not the "clear #1" in the 1500 (championship record 6th/1st/DQ). (CURRENTLY RANKED #19 BY WORLD ATHLETICS in this event group)
Hocker is not the clear #1 in the 5000 (championship record 7th/1st), garbage PB. [12:57 in 2025 to Kiplimo's 12:40 in 2024] (CURRENTLY RANKED #2 BY WORLD ATHLETICS in this event group, behind Fisher.)
Meanwhile, Kiplimo's worst marathon has been...2nd place...in London.
Kiplimo's worst half marathon, ever, has been a 2nd place. (While racking up a dozen major wins and absolutely torching the world record.)
Betting on Kiplimo in a half marathon is the best money in male distance running right now (>90% wins). And nobody who likes money will even bet against him in World XC (2nd, 1st, 1st, 1st.).
Betting on Hocker in a global championship, even just to medal, will lose as often as it wins. (6th, 7th, 1st, DQ, 1st.)
Kiplimo is probably the best XC runner, but he needs to become the clear marathon no 1 for your claims.
LOL. Why does Kiplimo need to be "clear #1" in his third-best event, when Hocker isn't "clear #1" in...anything?
In the desperation to put Kiplimo behind Hocker as world #1 distance runner, you weirdly demand that he become world #1 in the marathon, in addition to XC and the HM?
Best events, 2021-2025
- Kiplimo - XC: 3 consecutive World XC wins. DOMINANT, UNDISPUTED #1. - Hocker - 1500: global championship record = 6th, 1st, DQ. Not remotely dominant.
Second-best events:
- Kiplimo - HM, all races: 2 wins in 2025, WC Silver 2024, 1 win in 2023, 2 wins in 2022, 1 win in 2021. 56:42 world best in 2025. NO RUNNER IS MORE DOMINANT IN THIS EVENT. (Sawe may be close, and did pip Kiplimo by 4s at World HM, but has more losses, less wins, and a substantially slower PB. And he didn't even race the HM in 2025. There's a reason WA ranks Kiplimo #1.) - Hocker - 5000: global championship record = 7th, 1st. Terrible PB at 12:57. Not remotely dominant.
Third-best events:
- Kiplimo - Marathon: Two lifetime races, both in 2025: debut 2:03:37 London (2nd), 2:02:23 Chicago (win) - Hocker - So bad it's hard to say. Irrelevant 800. (1:45.1 PB in 2025.)
I anticipate that someone will bring up that Hocker once ran a fast time in the non-championship 3000m event, 7:23 in Feb 2025. He lost that race to Fisher, and is 6 seconds off of Jakob's 7:17 WR. Kiplimo's 2nd in London and 1st in Chicago are without question more impressive than a quick time-trial indoor 3000, that would have had him barely off the bend while his rival finished.
Kiplimo and Hocker don't overlap much in their events, but there is no question that Kiplimo is better at what he does (XC, HM, marathon) than Hocker is at what he does (1500, 5000, indoor time trials). (Remind me why he's never raced the Wannamaker Mile, even while time-trialing indoors every year?)
He's. Just. Not. Dominant. Like. Kiplimo. In. Anything.
I had the same opinion after Cole Hocker won the 5k in Tokyo, but since then I have changed my mind. I don’t think there is a clear contender for best distance runner in the world currently. I do think that when Jakob was healthy one could make the case it was him. He achieved a lot; Olympic golds, WC golds, other global silvers, World Indoor golds, WRs, the DL finals champ, and an impressive in season win-loss record. You can really only knock him for losing those three global finals 1500s in a row, but he still annihilated everyone in the 5k. I don’t think Jakob is ever coming back after this achilles injury so he is out of the equation now anyway.
Nobody has really taken the torch away from Jakob. I am fine with grouping everyone for this greatest list from 800 and up. Wanyonyi and El Bakali are dominant but haven’t equaled any world records or broken them like Jakob has. Sawe and Kiplimo are impressive long distance specialists, but neither has an Olympic or WC gold medal. Cole Hocker is definitely in the conversation, but he is mainly a championship specialist with decent PRs. He just has not achieved in totality what Jakob has yet. Maybe that will change if he wins a lot of races this season and at least scares a WR or two, besides the indoor 2k which was short lived.
I had the same opinion after Cole Hocker won the 5k in Tokyo, but since then I have changed my mind. I don’t think there is a clear contender for best distance runner in the world currently. I do think that when Jakob was healthy one could make the case it was him. He achieved a lot; Olympic golds, WC golds, other global silvers, World Indoor golds, WRs, the DL finals champ, and an impressive in season win-loss record. You can really only knock him for losing those three global finals 1500s in a row, but he still annihilated everyone in the 5k. I don’t think Jakob is ever coming back after this achilles injury so he is out of the equation now anyway.
Nobody has really taken the torch away from Jakob. I am fine with grouping everyone for this greatest list from 800 and up. Wanyonyi and El Bakali are dominant but haven’t equaled any world records or broken them like Jakob has. Sawe and Kiplimo are impressive long distance specialists, but neither has an Olympic or WC gold medal. Cole Hocker is definitely in the conversation, but he is mainly a championship specialist with decent PRs. He just has not achieved in totality what Jakob has yet. Maybe that will change if he wins a lot of races this season and at least scares a WR or two, besides the indoor 2k which was short lived.
Zzzzz. Change the thread title to "#1 track runner in the 1500 and 5000", or accept that the current "#1 distance runner" BY FAR, is Jakob Kiplimo.
Hocker fanboys are talking about a two-time global winner whose only other global results are 6th and 7th, a guy who doesn't even have the fastest 1500, 3000 or 5000 PB among active runners in the events, all without giving due respect to this guy's recent years year:
I had the same opinion after Cole Hocker won the 5k in Tokyo, but since then I have changed my mind. I don’t think there is a clear contender for best distance runner in the world currently. I do think that when Jakob was healthy one could make the case it was him. He achieved a lot; Olympic golds, WC golds, other global silvers, World Indoor golds, WRs, the DL finals champ, and an impressive in season win-loss record. You can really only knock him for losing those three global finals 1500s in a row, but he still annihilated everyone in the 5k. I don’t think Jakob is ever coming back after this achilles injury so he is out of the equation now anyway.
Nobody has really taken the torch away from Jakob. I am fine with grouping everyone for this greatest list from 800 and up. Wanyonyi and El Bakali are dominant but haven’t equaled any world records or broken them like Jakob has. Sawe and Kiplimo are impressive long distance specialists, but neither has an Olympic or WC gold medal. Cole Hocker is definitely in the conversation, but he is mainly a championship specialist with decent PRs. He just has not achieved in totality what Jakob has yet. Maybe that will change if he wins a lot of races this season and at least scares a WR or two, besides the indoor 2k which was short lived.
Zzzzz. Change the thread title to "#1 track runner in the 1500 and 5000", or accept that the current "#1 distance runner" BY FAR, is Jakob Kiplimo.
Hocker fanboys are talking about a two-time global winner whose only other global results are 6th and 7th, a guy who doesn't even have the fastest 1500, 3000 or 5000 PB among active runners in the events, all without giving due respect to this guy's recent years year:
World XC Gold + Chicago Win + 56:42 HM >> World 5000 Gold (+ zero other major wins)
If they both retired today, Kiplimo would have a shrine in the World Athletics hall of fame. And he's still going.
At this point Hocker is...one win above Centro.
While I admire your copy and pasting skills to actually quantitatively compare Kiplimo’s and Hocker’s performances across distances and championships, I do sense that your animus against Cole Hocker has blinded your objectivity. All professional runners and most of the fans will admit that an Olympic gold medal and WC gold are the pinnacles of the sport. Nobody honestly believes that World XC is as important.
As much as you can’t stand it; Cole has two outdoor global golds and Kiplimo has two bronzes. So Cole has achieved the pinnacle twice and Kiplimo hasn’t. So I disagree with you. There is no objective case to be made that Kiplimo is better than Hocker just because he has tried more events on different surfaces. It is likely Cole would smoke Kiplimo in the 3k and under. Cole hasn’t built up his aerobic system to be able to compete with Kiplimo over 5k. So honestly it’s a wash. Both are very good at different things. One is not better than the other because they pursued different career paths.
So I double down on my initial thought. I don’t think there is a current best distance runner right now. Cole has the golds but not the sheer versatility or super impressive times. Kiplimo has the fast times and long distance success, but no golds from the Olympics or World Outdoors. There’s others in both camps that I mentioned in my previous post.
I had the same opinion after Cole Hocker won the 5k in Tokyo, but since then I have changed my mind. I don’t think there is a clear contender for best distance runner in the world currently. I do think that when Jakob was healthy one could make the case it was him. He achieved a lot; Olympic golds, WC golds, other global silvers, World Indoor golds, WRs, the DL finals champ, and an impressive in season win-loss record. You can really only knock him for losing those three global finals 1500s in a row, but he still annihilated everyone in the 5k. I don’t think Jakob is ever coming back after this achilles injury so he is out of the equation now anyway.
Nobody has really taken the torch away from Jakob. I am fine with grouping everyone for this greatest list from 800 and up. Wanyonyi and El Bakali are dominant but haven’t equaled any world records or broken them like Jakob has. Sawe and Kiplimo are impressive long distance specialists, but neither has an Olympic or WC gold medal. Cole Hocker is definitely in the conversation, but he is mainly a championship specialist with decent PRs. He just has not achieved in totality what Jakob has yet. Maybe that will change if he wins a lot of races this season and at least scares a WR or two, besides the indoor 2k which was short lived.
The question isn't about total career achievements. We're talking about who's #1 right now. It ain't the guy in the walking boot.
I had the same opinion after Cole Hocker won the 5k in Tokyo, but since then I have changed my mind. I don’t think there is a clear contender for best distance runner in the world currently. I do think that when Jakob was healthy one could make the case it was him. He achieved a lot; Olympic golds, WC golds, other global silvers, World Indoor golds, WRs, the DL finals champ, and an impressive in season win-loss record. You can really only knock him for losing those three global finals 1500s in a row, but he still annihilated everyone in the 5k. I don’t think Jakob is ever coming back after this achilles injury so he is out of the equation now anyway.
Nobody has really taken the torch away from Jakob. I am fine with grouping everyone for this greatest list from 800 and up. Wanyonyi and El Bakali are dominant but haven’t equaled any world records or broken them like Jakob has. Sawe and Kiplimo are impressive long distance specialists, but neither has an Olympic or WC gold medal. Cole Hocker is definitely in the conversation, but he is mainly a championship specialist with decent PRs. He just has not achieved in totality what Jakob has yet. Maybe that will change if he wins a lot of races this season and at least scares a WR or two, besides the indoor 2k which was short lived.
The question isn't about total career achievements. We're talking about who's #1 right now. It ain't the guy in the walking boot.
I literally said in the last sentence of my first paragraph that Jakob is now out of the equation.
The question isn't about total career achievements. We're talking about who's #1 right now. It ain't the guy in the walking boot.
I literally said in the last sentence of my first paragraph that Jakob is now out of the equation.
Okay, fair. I was thrown off by your taking the torch comment. I think Hocker took the torch when he passed by Jakob and everyone else in the 5000 final in Tokyo.
I literally said in the last sentence of my first paragraph that Jakob is now out of the equation.
Okay, fair. I was thrown off by your taking the torch comment. I think Hocker took the torch when he passed by Jakob and everyone else in the 5000 final in Tokyo.
I think that Cole Hocker is really really good and should be taken seriously by all of his competitors as a threat to win every race he is in now. For him to be the new Alpha, he has to rack up more wins this year and get at least under 3:27 and 3:44. I would like to see an AR in the outdoor 3k and 5k. I give Cole all the credit in the world for dusting those guys at their own game in Tokyo. Jakob was not his full self, but whatever it doesn’t take away from Hocker’s victory. I just think if Cole can get a solid winning streak going this year, show he can win some races on the Diamond League circuit, run some fast times, and most importantly win against the best who is available; then that will be enough to make a case for being the new Alpha.
Hoey is going to drop an absolutely NASTY 1500 this summer. If Hocker is in the race he will lose.
Hoey is not making to summer without a doping violation. Also, Hocker would smoke him over 1000m. Again, focus on what OP said. TODAY, this month, no one is beating Hocker. Jakob Achillies going to way of Brazier. He's cooked. Maybe a bronze coming in 5k in LA.