Awesome Jakob Ingebrigtsen profile in The Times: When I'm done, I want there to be no doubt I'm the GOAT.

This guy is fvcking great. Wildly entertaining, with the talent and focus backing up the talk. Paris is going to be epic.

Can't wait until his ass gets dropped by THE Hobbs Kessler in the Paris 1500

Kerr lives rent free in Ingebrigtsen's head.

Lol yeah the master narcissistic trash talking the lesser narcissist and complaining people are giving him attention as if that's how Kerr won a WC gold, and just broke a WR and won another gold. LOL. Jakob is going to have a hard time recovering if he gets beaten by Kerr again.

Yep will be fun watching him win or lose. He's great for the sport.

Say what you want - he is always dead honest. if it sounds like he is bragging or weird or whatever - he does not care. Much prefer that to other athletes saying things just to sound nice.

Why does Norway produce the whiniest 1500 runners on the planet? Can not wait for Kerr to take it to Jakob at the Olympics and then hear a million excuses afterwards or some BS on why it doesn't count.

Agree. You might not like him but you have to appreciate him.

Paavo Johannes Nurmi was a Finnish middle-distance and long-distance runner. He was called the "Flying Finn" or the "Phantom Finn", as he dominated distance running in the 1920s. Nurmi set 22 official world records at distances between 1,500 metres and 20 kilometres, and won nine gold and three silver medals in his 12 events in the Summer Olympic Games. At his peak, Nurmi was undefeated for 121 races at distances from 800 m upwards. Throughout his 14-year career, he remained unbeaten in cross country events and the 10,000 meters.

OK, in what world is Ingebrigtsen going to build up a resume that even gets him into a conversation about being the GOAT, let alone puts the conversation to bed?

Are you insinuating that Nurmi is the GOAT? One of the greatest for sure for how much he pioneered the sport, but I have trouble calling someone who has a slower 10000m PR than wejo the GOAT. I know you can't really compare athletes across time periods, but only a fraction of nations was competing during Nurmi's time compared to today

But that was before super shoes

Jakob is spot on about Kerr, who's just using Jakobs name to further his own.

Jakob has clocked 7 times faster than Kerrs PB, won the final at Tokyo where Kerr ran his PB, is 12-2 head to head, has the vastly superior medal count and this is in his off event while being far from his prime age. Jakob is competing against the history books, not the Brits.

I don't think there are a lot of surprises here. It's think it's easy to forget that he is already one of the greatest ever in the uncompromising solo sport there is and he's competing in arguably the deepest and most competitive events. Oh and he was basically the best in the world when he was only 20 years old. I think to be at this level you simply need this single-mindedness which manifests in certain ways - like this "you get one chance with me then you are out forever" narrative he's convinced himself he needs to have. But this is also all momentary (just like his runner career) - I would guess 40 year old Jakob will eventually look back on his early 20's self and probably concede it was all just growing pains but also he believed he needed to be like this and that's completely fine.

His comments on Kerr are interesting, they make me smile. For example, part of me growing up as a human was realizing for a long period of my life in my youth, I would point out in others the things I subconsciously knew was true/truer for myself. It's the whole "I know I swear too much but if I can convince the room that this guy over here swears more than me, I'm not the guy with the foul mouth" deal. Of course Jakob wants attention. Of course he misses something in himself that he is searching for in others - big deal, he's a freaking kid! He points it out in Kerr to resolve it in his own mind and if he believes that this gives him some mental fortitude edge then so be it. People will definitely take this sort of stuff as arrogance but I don't. It's a level of ultimately harmless immaturity and I have empathy (and some sympathy) for him with respect to why he thinks he needs it.

But hey, he is clearly grounded regarding the GOAT/BOAT topic and he's right on the mark with that. He is right about what it would take and he's not some idiot pretender just bandying the "I want to be the best ever" statement as a cliche catch phrase because he legitimately has a chance to do it. If he walks away from Paris with a 1500m gold he is in very rare air. If he walks out of Paris with the 1500m/5000m double then we start looking at a guy that did something El Guerrouj couldn't do (yes he did the 15/5 but couldn't win B2B titles) and something Coe couldn't do (yes he went B2B but couldn't win another event at the same games). Think about that for a second. If he could break either the 1500 or the mile WR (it's far more likely and realistic for it to be the mile) I don't see how we can't definitively pencil him down already as the greatest we have ever seen and he's not turning 24 until September.

Paris 24 is just going to be so awesome after the let-down of Tokyo. The 1500m final for me is already the most anticipated race in my lifetime and even though they don't have the "fellow countryman" aspect, the mere clash of similar alpha personalities puts it right there with Coe and Ovett.

Amazing how great he thinks he is. Embarrassing really. Dude's a Tool

Absolutely LOVE the ambition! This is the mindset of true champions.

Good take. Enjoyed reading your post.

I think if he stays healthy he should be able to do it. He has a good chance at every record, weird distances included, from 1500 to 5000 and maybe higher.

He would only be 28 in 2029 when he could possibly be going for his fifth world championship in a single track event, which I don’t think any man (and maybe anyone) has ever done. Bolt, el g, geb, etc have 4.

The only “blemishes” in his career so far are two silver medals in games where he also came away with golds, and a lack of medals at 18 in 2019, which really shows how high the standard he has set is.

Also, I'm way more interested in seeing him tackle the 5k, 10k and half marathon than the 1500, but he's going to keep focusing on the 1500 as long as he's young.

Someone like Andreas Almgren of Sweden just posted the second fastest European HM all time in his debut, and he's a runner who started out running 800m and gradually moved up to longer distances. And he's crediting the Ingebrigtsens for helping him with his training and adopting double threshold that's helped him stay injury free.

Why does he keep bringing up Kerr all the time, dude is very insecure