Jakob has been beating them both since he was 15, including in European Championships, indoor and out, 2019 world championships and the 2020 Olympics. He's been beating them both way more than they have beaten him. Facts! His biggest competition won't even be either of them, it will be Yared or someone no one is eve thinking about now. Kerr is just talking to much sh*t, and it will be great to see him go down in flames!
Jakob has never raced either Kerr or Wightman indoors. Other than their respective World and Olympic records, where we know they each have one gold, Jakob beat Kerr by one place at Euro juniors (9th vs 10th) and he beat Wightman in the final at Euros in 2018. Yeah, he beats them when he's paced on the circuit, but tho cares?
In any case, Paris will be fascinating. Jakob will need to show 3:26-low fitness if he's going to do his usual thing and try and run away from everyone. There's at least three men who have either run 3:28 or have that potential. Or will Jakob actually demonstrate some tactical growth and allow someone else to take it on? I think he could just let it go for 700m then wind it up and still win in something like 3:30-3:32 as he has the best last 800m of anyone in the field (yes, others have run a faster open 800, but that's not the point). Everything will depend on how well Jakob has learned from the last two World Champs
During a season Jakob normally runs a lot of races despite being sick at least one time in the winter season and one time in the summer (f.ex unlike Kerr he has participated in a lot of Euros champs and also WC indoors). But this running schedule makes him vulnerable for being sick in some of the races, or even being forced to cancel only hours before the start. So when Jakob claims being sick in the important races he seems to be making himself an easy target -“he is just making bad excuses for his losses”…
Jakob has had to cancel numerous of less important races (f.ex a 5k Valencia road race he really was looking forward to participate in) and he has also had to make “excuses” for why he grossly underperformed in some unimportant races (f.ex places around number 70 in the local 10k “Hytteplanmila” -because of a virus- despite winning the same race the previous year, in a National record).
Jakob has participated in maybe 3-4 as many champs as f.ex Kerr (all the Euros) -this clearly increases the probability of being sick in some of them. -F.ex in the Euros u20 xc in 2017 he ran with a cold (almost his whole family was sick, and Jakob’s voice was clearly affected), but in the minor champs he can get away with this; in the WC’s however his reduced capacity of 2-3 seconds will reduce his gold to silver…
The first part of this is definitely fair - Jakob has plenty of action to go with the talk. But it's possible to be honest and unsportsmanlike. Even if you believe it's honest, saying "congrats to him but everybody knows I'm the best" when you lose just isn't a great look in my opinion.
Mathematicians of LetsRun.com, can someone tell me if the odds are that he beats Josh and Jake 98 times out of 100, what are the odds that he's lost to both of them in the last race he ran against them?
Also if he wins 98 times out of 100 if they ran a million times, what are the odds he's already lost 1 of 9 races vs Kerr at 1500 in his life and 1 of 7 against Wightman since 2019?
One other thing I forgot to put in the article is in it he rules out doing the 1500, 5000, 10,000 triple this year.
"Yes, it's not possible. It will be difficult with three exercises with such a hectic schedule," said Jakob.
In reality, I'd say the triple is more doable than it is for him to expect to beat Kerr and Wightman 98 times out of 100 (now he might beat them that many times if it was rabbitted).
Good reasoning here -especially if you take Wightman’s and Ingebrigtsen’s 2022 shapes as a premise. But you can’t, because Jakob is clearly speaking mostly about 2023 and future shape, and there he seems to be clearly superior not only to Kerr, but also Wightman (who beat a sound Ingebrigtsen fair and square).
And you read the odds wrongly when it comes to who beats who when you don’t take sickness into account. -The odds for Kerr being inside 2 sec of Jakob in a fast race (even with the latter pacing the whole thing; thus “I am the pacer”) is slim. (Nuguse could profit in his 3.43 run because it wasn’t a champ race, and therefore a peacefully strung out field) 2023 Jakob against Josh was a whole other ballgame than 2022 against Wightman -2023 Jakob had reached a level that only sickness could out level against Kerr (It had nothing to do about the disadvantage of leading -not that much compared with Kerr’s and others’ disadvantage of fighting in the field…).
Saying that -keep up the good work of subscribing and translating from Norwegian newspapers! Even I (despite being a Norwegian) would have missed out here because of a pay wall. Thank you!
Make it 97/100 when we add in Tefera (unsurprisingly also in a championship setting)
Never understood this obsession with performing on race day. If you're a better athlete, you're better. Bekele had the 5k and 10k records, which is why nobody cared about Farah even though he won more golds in both the Olympics and Worlds.
Congrats, they beat a sick person. They're still going to be chasing the ghost.
Make it 97/100 when we add in Tefera (unsurprisingly also in a championship setting)
Never understood this obsession with performing on race day. If you're a better athlete, you're better. Bekele had the 5k and 10k records, which is why nobody cared about Farah even though he won more golds in both the Olympics and Worlds.
Congrats, they beat a sick person. They're still going to be chasing the ghost.
Never understood the obsession with wanting to win world titles and gold medals, eh?
Where Jakob is a bit off is he is incidentally thinking he is where Tim Cheruiyot was in 2019, when in reality the field is much closer to him. Tim went out hard (54high) and then just cranked out a 3:29-low with nobody able to live with that. You could say in my view a 98/100 estimate was about right. There was a 2% chance he'd misjudge it, be a bit off his game, or someone would have the race of their life etc.
Now, Jakob paced in the 1500 is maximally 3:26mid-high, which is better than Tim was. Let's not mistake that Tim was probably in 3:27 shape, but just didn't run it due to the lack of wavelight and some poorly-paced races where he ran 3:28 nonetheless. But the bigger impact was the shape of the field, which was at best 3:30.0 or so (Jakob/Makhloufi). Without a pacer, I don't think we've gotten a true sense of Jakobs ceiling because in 2022, he let it go slow (while fending off surges) and wasn't in the shape of 2023. In 2023, he was sick and allowed for a fast finish again. But even at Pre he had a pacer for 909 meters, which meant 700 on his own (which didn't faze him much at all) to a 3:43.7. In a World Final, he gets Kipsang or whoever for 400 meters, so we are looking at an extra 400 he has to lead. That matters definitely, but I still think there's no reason to believe he couldn't be right around 3:28 flat or 3:27 high. That being said, that would NOT give him Tim's 2019 separation or the 98 out of 100 probabilities. We have seen Nuguse run faster than this (mile conversion). And we have seen Josh Kerr pull out a 3:29 with some extra distance run in the last lap within a 52 high lap. That indicates he had some time to gain in a perfectly paced race set by Jakob. So, there are contenders who don't fit this 2 out of 100, these guys are better than that especially if you are trying to lead 1100 meters to the finish.
I think most of your reasoning here is sound, apart from a couple of points (where I of course might be wrong because of an overestimation of Jakob’s abilities) -I seriously think that Jakob could front run a 3.26 mid the whole way (would need some luck in the first bend), and I also think (it being a championship) there’s is no guarantee for a strung out field behind him without fighting and wide bends… -Therefore an estimated win of 2 sec / 2.5 sec, although I agree that f.ex a peak Kerr could pb with 0.5 sec in a strung out race…
"“It is an enormous level of 1500. There were probably five or six who were initially better than those who won a medal. But it will always be the case that some overperform and others underperform. And when I run 2.5 seconds slower than what I am good for, for various reasons, I am clearly dissatisfied with my own performance,” said Jakob."
Does he expect to be in low 3:27 shape in a championship race?
Yes he does. -Obviously you haven’t watched his Silensia race, where he pretty much soloed a 3.27.14. And in Budapest he was in far better shape than that, before the sickness made it’s marks…
Where Jakob is a bit off is he is incidentally thinking he is where Tim Cheruiyot was in 2019, when in reality the field is much closer to him. Tim went out hard (54high) and then just cranked out a 3:29-low with nobody able to live with that. You could say in my view a 98/100 estimate was about right. There was a 2% chance he'd misjudge it, be a bit off his game, or someone would have the race of their life etc.
Now, Jakob paced in the 1500 is maximally 3:26mid-high, which is better than Tim was. Let's not mistake that Tim was probably in 3:27 shape, but just didn't run it due to the lack of wavelight and some poorly-paced races where he ran 3:28 nonetheless. But the bigger impact was the shape of the field, which was at best 3:30.0 or so (Jakob/Makhloufi). Without a pacer, I don't think we've gotten a true sense of Jakobs ceiling because in 2022, he let it go slow (while fending off surges) and wasn't in the shape of 2023. In 2023, he was sick and allowed for a fast finish again. But even at Pre he had a pacer for 909 meters, which meant 700 on his own (which didn't faze him much at all) to a 3:43.7. In a World Final, he gets Kipsang or whoever for 400 meters, so we are looking at an extra 400 he has to lead. That matters definitely, but I still think there's no reason to believe he couldn't be right around 3:28 flat or 3:27 high. That being said, that would NOT give him Tim's 2019 separation or the 98 out of 100 probabilities. We have seen Nuguse run faster than this (mile conversion). And we have seen Josh Kerr pull out a 3:29 with some extra distance run in the last lap within a 52 high lap. That indicates he had some time to gain in a perfectly paced race set by Jakob. So, there are contenders who don't fit this 2 out of 100, these guys are better than that especially if you are trying to lead 1100 meters to the finish.
I think most of your reasoning here is sound, apart from a couple of points (where I of course might be wrong because of an overestimation of Jakob’s abilities) -I seriously think that Jakob could front run a 3.26 mid the whole way (would need some luck in the first bend), and I also think (it being a championship) there’s is no guarantee for a strung out field behind him without fighting and wide bends… -Therefore an estimated win of 2 sec / 2.5 sec, although I agree that f.ex a peak Kerr could pb with 0.5 sec in a strung out race…
326 solo effort? You are delusional. Even el g couldn't and he's still the wr holder
Make it 97/100 when we add in Tefera (unsurprisingly also in a championship setting)
Never understood this obsession with performing on race day. If you're a better athlete, you're better. Bekele had the 5k and 10k records, which is why nobody cared about Farah even though he won more golds in both the Olympics and Worlds.
Congrats, they beat a sick person. They're still going to be chasing the ghost.
Performance on race day is the whole reason the sport exists.
Never understood the obsession with wanting to win world titles and gold medals, eh?
He wasn’t sick in 2022 (or 2021 v Tefera).
He was sick vs Tefera (whom he beat in a similar race by 3 whole seconds a few weeks before, in an indoors WR) -Jakob even provided picture of a positive covid test!
Yeah, yeah, I know -Jakob is a chronic liar in your view (faking proof of sickness and so on) so you can disregard the context all over the place, keeping up your bias needs…
Yes he does. -Obviously you haven’t watched his Silensia race, where he pretty much soloed a 3.27.14. And in Budapest he was in far better shape than that, before the sickness made it’s marks…
Ever heard of rounds and heat?
Yes, I have. Ever heard of Olympics where Jakob easily pb’ed in the final after rounds and heat..?
326 solo effort? You are delusional. Even el g couldn't and he's still the wr holder
Yes I’m delusional to suggest that Jakob could run 0.6 seconds faster than in Silesia (where he on a bad day -according to himself- ran 3.27.14; practically unpaced)..!! Man, what are you on?
How many runners could live with him running 4:43 over 2k? 7:54 over 2 miles? 3:27.14 1500m? 3:43 mile?
He is clear and away over 3K/2miles vs. the usual suspects. The next best there is Lamecha Girma and Mo Katir there. Can't see Katir winning a H2H, but Girma would be intriguing and I don't believe we've seen them face off. If they eliminated the Steeple tomorrow, I'd think he'd give Jakob a run for his money at those distances. For the mile and 1500, I think Yared can hang with him and Kerr in a championship race too.
Can't see Katir winning head to head? Katir is credited with breaking Jakob, making him crash to the track and force his Achilles injury in only winning by .02
Never understood this obsession with performing on race day. If you're a better athlete, you're better. Bekele had the 5k and 10k records, which is why nobody cared about Farah even though he won more golds in both the Olympics and Worlds.
Congrats, they beat a sick person. They're still going to be chasing the ghost.
Performance on race day is the whole reason the sport exists.
Yes it is. But on a particular race day is way down on my list. I enjoy how good the athletes can become in a larger timeframe, meaning how good they really were at their best. Therefore Jakob’s supremacy over Kerr and Wightman because of his more prestigious Oly victory doesn’t mean that much to me (or Jakob I believe) but Jakob being on a far higher overall level than these two athletes.
326 solo effort? You are delusional. Even el g couldn't and he's still the wr holder
Yes I’m delusional to suggest that Jakob could run 0.6 seconds faster than in Silesia (where he on a bad day -according to himself- ran 3.27.14; practically unpaced)..!! Man, what are you on?
Hey bro, when are you going to understand that every time Jakob runs poorly he's going to say he either felt bad or was "sick".. it's his MO.
Make it 97/100 when we add in Tefera (unsurprisingly also in a championship setting)
Never understood this obsession with performing on race day. If you're a better athlete, you're better. Bekele had the 5k and 10k records, which is why nobody cared about Farah even though he won more golds in both the Olympics and Worlds.
Congrats, they beat a sick person. They're still going to be chasing the ghost.
I'm thinking of printing out this post and having it framed as it's possibly the dumbest take I've seen on this board: "Who cares about winning the the big races!" Honestly my man, sport is not for you, find another hobby.