What does Mr. Jakob need to do to become the greatest 5k runner ever?

It would help if he ran the 5k more than just at championships.

I think we all would, but he recognizes that he is the best in the world at it, so why bother run it more than he has to at his current age? He understands his peak time is limited in the shorter distances, 1500/mile. Yes, we all know those are not his best events, but he still is an all-time great at the distances (you can argue on a million other threads where he ranks with respect to others, but I’m not doing that here). An Olympic gold, 2 WC silvers, and #4 and #3 all-time while only being 23 years old is a resume anyone else would love to swap with. He still has time left to improve this legacy. His 4th place finish at the Olympics was extremely dumb tactically, but it still was the fastest solo 1500 ever. There are zero reasons for him to give up the event just because he only front ran a 3:28.

Him being obsessed with the 1500 makes him unbeatable in these slower championship style 5000 races. Nobody is going to beat him in the final 1600 when they come thru north of 9 minutes. A day will come when he decides to focus more on the 5k, but I think his best bet is to continue racing 1500s for as long as he can because that will continue to make him unbeatable in the 5k.

edit: He is also in a very nice cycle of winning 5k global championships and maintaining a very high world ranking and getting the previous world champion wild card slot as a result of him winning. He has it so easy to go from one global championship to another without ever having to jump into a fast DL 5000.

5k record is not within his grasp.

15 GOAT: WRs in 15 and 1 mi, gold at next three championships

4 golds to El G’s 5, but being 2x Olympic champ and running faster at every distance would be enough to put him ahead for me.

5k GOAT: WR, gold at next three championships

He would have more golds than Farah and be faster than Bekele.

I disagree there are zero reasons for him to give up the event.

With his huge aerobic engine and 3:26 speed he could be unbeatable over both the 5k and 10k at championships.

He could absolutely win a double-double of 5/10 golds in LA and Brisbane plus win at every WC in between and surpass Farah as the greatest championship track distance runner of all time along with an Olympic gold in the 1500m because he will simply be quicker.

I could understand him wanting to stick with the 15 for the next WC cycle to try and finally get that title but I think 3:25.XX is likely beyond him and it's extremely unlikely he will win another 1500 title against the likes of Kerr, Hocker, Laros etc.

If I'm Jingy I'm going all in on breaking the 1500/mile WR's now - like in these last couple meets this year and/or next season. Once (if) mission accomplished, switch gears and hone in on the 5000 WR - 12:30 seems within reach.

Caveat: I'm not Jingy. 🤷

EPO

You're right. A 7:54 2-mile guy could never run 12:35.

I don’t think 12:30 is within his reach. According to the IAAF scoring tables, it’s equivalent to running 3:24.7. Because he’s been able to kick to a win in championship races off of slow paces, doesn’t mean he’s significantly better at 5000m.

Does Ingebrigtsen know he’s “Jingy”?

His 7:54 scores better than the 12:35 though - that is definitely within his reach.

100%

This notion that because he's "only" 23 he will have seemingly infinite time at his absolute peak over the distance I just don't understand. El G (the GOAT) didn't, neither did Morceli, Coe, Walker, Ryun.

Hicham ran under 3.27 5 times and he only did it in 3 seasons. Twice in 98, once in 01 and twice in 02. And this was a guy who was really a 1500 specialist who ran only 5 non 1500m/mile races on the European circuit in 10 years (and when he ran them at the WCs and OGs it was 03/04 the last 2 seasons of his career). So the point is it was even tough for El G to bring this level to the table year after year and he had less "extra curricular" racing at other distances that Jakob.

If Jakob breaks 3.27 again this season it would be sensational. If he does it 3 times it would be historic. But this is why I agree with you that if he wants to challenge these records he has to go for it within the next 12 months. The mile in particular is so much weaker (comparatively) to the 1500 - he can smash this and really make it tough (put it into the 3.42.6/7 range). I really wonder why he didn't ask for a mile either here or in Zurich - it seems like a long time since they ran a mile in Zurich in particular and that is a super historic venue for miling.

The 1500m will be very tough for him. It does need 2.45.5 at 1200m which needs an opening lap closer to 55.0 and we know this is getting right to his limit because 54.8 compromised him in Paris. Lausanne will be super interesting to see what he asks for pace wise. Because of WL and his ability to sustain pace we can basically guess exactly what his intentions are based on the requested pace.

Based on the scoring tables, it’s equivalent to 3:26 and 12:35.

Ingebrigtsen is an Olympic champion at 1500m and .7 seconds off of the WR. I don’t see him running 12:30.

A fast time?

He's run 12:48. Do you know how many guys have run <12:50.9 pre-2008? 16x. Almost half the guys ahead of Jakob on the all time rankings did it over a decade ago.

Pacers, competition, wave lights, super-spikes... Jakob has only broken 13:02 once in his life... it's one thing to be a show pony for Championship races, but for all his double threshold stuff, the man is lacking any kind of consistently fast performances, instead he favours getting turned over constantly at the shorter distance

To be the GOAT 5k runner he “merely” needs to break the WR and win gold in LA ‘28. I expect he’ll add more WC golds/medals but ultimately those are window dressing.

The title of “5k GOAT” is actually more assailable than 800 GOAT, 1500 GOAT, 10k GOAT, or marathon GOAT:

-Only two men have won two Olympic 5k golds: Lasse Viren and Mo Farah. Viren held the WR (13:16.4) for all of six days before Emiel Puttemans ran 13:13.0, and was nowhere in non-Olympic years; Farah’s 12:53.11 PB put him 100 meters behind Bekele’s WR.

-Bekele would probably win in a poll on the current 5k GOAT. His WC/OG 5k medal haul is 1 OG gold, 1 OG silver, 1 WC gold, 1 WC bronze. Another Ingebrigtsen Olympic gold would clearly make his medal record superior, and anyone arguing Bekele would have to rely on Golden League record and the effects of super spikes/wavelight (not that it’s a crazy argument).

-Haile took a couple huge bites out of the WR but Komen and Bekele took a lot of the oomph out of Haile’s fast times, and more importantly Haile never contested the event in the Olympics and his entire 5k medal haul is a single silver from 1993, which puts him right out of contention.

-Beyond that, you would have to go back to Emil Zatopek (his 13:57 WR/PB was a meager improvement on Gunder Hagg’s 13:58 and stood for just 3 months, and within 3.5 years the record was 13:35; he lost the 1948 Olympic 5k to Gaston Reiff and by 1954 was 3rd at Euros behind Kuts and Chataway), or Paavo Nurmi (14:28.2 WR/PB, 1 OG gold & 2 OG silvers, and 97% of people would consider his era too dated for him to be a serious answer).

By “show pony” you mean 1X Olympic Champion and 2X World Champion at 5K?

I was going to answer exactly that. It's the 2028 Gold and the WR. And all your reasonings are right on.

It's a really interesting one because a completely plausible scenario is him winning two more world titles and one more Olympic title but not getting the WR. That gives him 4&2 which is something nobody would have done. I'm also assuming that by 2028 at the very least he will have a historically elite performance around 12.40.0 so that eliminates the "Farah factor" of having the medals but physically being so far back on the track in terms of ceiling performance. But is that enough to surpass KB? I just think we are at the point in all events - certainly on the mens side, where to be the greatest ever you need to have been at some point the fastest human to ever run the distance.

I do believe the WR matters more than even 2 more (3?) world titles and one more OG. Bekeles old 5000m WR is still one of the most impressive straight up performances ever run across any distance - he only had pacing for 2000m and no lights to support him (you can see how much that impacted him by his splits which were far from efficient). 4 world titles, 2 Olympic titles probably points to him being the best 5000m runner, but when you have to go across eras it would leave him just short of the GOAT moniker.

So yeah, the WR and LA and we have the greatest ever, agree.

I don’t know what he goes by among friends. But his old yellow Mercedes has the license plate “JAKCY12”. See link:

dagbladet.no

Ingebrigtsen: Her går det galt

Jakob Ingebrigtsen ankom NM-arenaen i sin gule luksusbil, men den er kanskje ikke skreddersydd for humpete gater i Sandnes. Video: Løkås

Link:www.dagbladet.no/video/ingebrigtsen-he...

All he needs is one more WC gold, one more olympic gold, and the WR. If he does that, he is undisputedly the GOAT over the 5k. You can’t even argue supershoes because he will have matched Farah’s record over championships while still having the WR, something Farah didn’t have. But, he will have more golds than Bekele as well.

A WR at the distance *OR* 3 more world titles including LA 2028, and grabbing a top 5 time on the all time list, which would currently mean replacing Haile G at 12:39

Contrary to some people, I don't think both are necessary to secure GOAT status. A WR does a lot, but being high on the list with a half dozen titles is a pretty good resume for undisputed GOAT