Nuguse says Jakob won’t try the same strategy at Worlds this year

He won Euros last year with a different strategy. He also won his first Olympic title with a different strategy. He's gonna keep doing it because it's a point of pride for him to win like that. He doesn't want to just win - he wants to show complete and utter dominance over his competition.

You guys clearly haven’t watched these races. He didn’t do the same thing every year. Rewatch the races before making dumb statements like these.

You are correct.

• 2022: Took the lead with a little over 800m to go
• 2023: Took the lead with a little over 1,000m to go
• 2024: Took the lead with a little over 1,400m to go

Jakob isn't dumb. He chooses the strategy that he thinks gives him the best chance to win based on the event, his strengths, his fitness, how he feels, and who he's racing. It's not about wanting to "show complete and utter dominance over his competition," as the previous poster said. It's about doing whatever gives him the best chance to win in that particular race on that particular day.

The main thing for Jakob is he wants the race to be fast because that gives him the best chance to win. But that doesn't necessarily mean he wants to lead the whole thing or even the majority of it. I'm sure he'd be delighted for someone else to lead the majority of the race like Tim C. did in 2021, as long as the pace is fast.

in 2022, he wanted to go much earlier, but timothy wouldn't let him pass, and kept the pace hot enough for another lap. In 2023 Kipsang wouldn't let him go by, but honestly, he ran most of that in lane 2 and outside of lane 1, so he wasn't getting any drafting advantage. might as well have been leading. In 2024, I think he he felt like those guys had held him back, so he decided to go straight for it in the beginning and just commit.

I think Jakob will adjust slightly.

He'll need to be more cautious on first lap. He may really try to blast them for 1000.

But his instinct essentially is always to try and run as fast as he can. That works a lot easier when you have a rabbit in the DL.

The question is if you coached Jakob how would you tell him to race it?

I'm not sure what I was thinking. The strategy wasn't the same.

So I guess that begs the question if you are coaching him what do you tell him to do? I was thinking he should and lead from like a 1000 out but he's tried that before.

“Tell” is a pretty strong word for your question. Ingebrigtsen has far more experience in racing world class 1500m than any coach, knows himself better than anyone else and has a strong personality. “Suggest” or “ hint” would be better.

The 2022 strategy is sound, but he tried to “control it” instead of just blasting the pace. I’d advise Jakob to accept that it might be more like 3:33 pace through 700 and then go with sub-1:48 neg split squeeze from there.

If my math is correct, that comes out 3:27, so that’s not going to happen.

The problem for Ingebrigtsen is that the only thing he can control is the initial pace. If someone else sets a fast pace, that would be the best scenario, but if no one does that and he waits to take the lead, a 60 first lap will the shorten the race and not to his benefit.

It’s kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don’t, situation for Ingebrigtsen.

I'd tell him to move up to his self-admitted best event the half marathon.

3:27hi-3:29.0 and why couldn’t it happen. He can probably maximally run 1.5-2.7s faster.

ok. re-watching 2022, i agree the strategy was basically fine. i think 2022 was just a low point for him in the 1500 and he wasn't good enough.

The 2022 strategy is great except for the fact that he ran the first 700m in lane 2 on every bend. He likely went through the “actual” 1500m in 3:27 but only finished in 3:29. Wightman ran a much smarter race despite being 2 seconds slower. I think the 2023 strategy was the best but he was sick, so he wouldn’t win with any tactic really. I think he can win in a variety of different ways if he is at full strength. He can chill for the first 300m and then once they slow down at the front, go for the lead like in the Euros. I personally don’t see anyone beating him like this but that’s my opinion. He can also chill for the first 800m and then take the lead or perhaps follow someone like Nuguse or Kerr who will probably take the lead as well.

The more I think about it, I think either a variation of the Matt Centrowitz strategy of taking the lead but not going super fast or sitting behind someone going decently fast is the best strategy for him.

Uh not really. Running in lane 2 for every bend isn’t exactly a great strategy.

I think the most important thing for Jakob is that he needs to be able to run his fastest 100m split in the last 100 of the race (and his 2nd fastest from 1300-1400, and his 3rd fastest from 1200-1300). Acting as the pacer and being maxed out on pace with 200m to go opens up the door for others to gather and summon the move to get past him.

It probably goes without saying this is unlikely to work if it’s legitimately “slow” to the bell, but I think it’s an under-confident mistake for him to think the finishing time must be 3:28 or faster. If I were his coach and/or older brother, I’d advise him to get out safely and just relax as much as possible for the first 600m, regardless of the pace. Take over decisively but with the deliberate intention of running every 100m faster than the last. 59.0-57.5-55.5-39.5 is only 3:31.5 but if his last 200 is approaching 26.0 and he’s got a stride or two on his pursuers, who are tangling with each other, that’s difficult to beat.

Kicker vs strength runner problem has been around forever, even in hs dual meets.

Kicker sits and waits, strength runner leads and tries to run kick out of the kicker...or pull away. Jakob's best chance to win is to lead early.

If he waits to lead and pace crawls, he's dead already early in race. He wants it to be a full 1500m of racing, not a 700 jog, followed by hard 800. He's not the fastest 800 runner in field either.

He can win this way, he just has to run the perfect race.

Concerns of drafting, lane 2 in a 1500 etc are overrated. Look at Hocker's gold. In a kicker's race he did the impossible...actually kicking twice against world class competitors!

Simple, on that particular day, at that particular moment, he had the best fitness. Could have been as simple as the perfect squirt of adrenaline, but in crunch time be had the wherewithal to kick twice! (not a usual effective plan)

I don't think this is true. I think Jakob is probably the fittest guy in every race he contests. There's a reason he's essentially unbeatable in rabbited races.

I think he has better individual odds than anyone else, but he's certainly not favored to beat the field. At the end of the race there's a good chance that someone has the wheels left to outkick him. The 2nd-4th best in the world are far better than they've ever been.

The problem with running from the front is that you waste probably 0.5s per lap having to draft, which means you need a fitness gap of ~2s over the entire field even if you execute the race perfectly. Since Hocker ran 3:27.65, it means Jakob needed to be in 3:25.65 shape at minimum. Frankly, he probably wasn't far off, but his splits weren't ideal (54.9-56.6-55.8-40.9) which complicated things further. He also made tactical mistakes like wasting energy by surging with 700 to go. In comparison, Hocker's splits were much more even with 55.6-56.4-55.8-39.6. Tim in 2019 is the only guy in history who's been able to win from the front and that's because he did have that fitness gap and people were too afraid to go with him. Not anymore.

So how can Jakob win this year? I think El G's strategy in 2004 is the way to go, just sit on the rail for 700m and just started grinding everyone's wheels off with 800m to go. In Eugene he didn't really commit enough. Alternatively, I think doing nothing special and just sitting in the pack like everyone else would give him surprisingly decent odds. His kick is very underrated, we just never get to see it because he always burns himself out too early (which of course is a risk he'll have to take with the El G strategy).

You don’t know what you were thinking? Seems like par for the course, like the other day spitting out “… but he didn’t win the Olympics,” or whatever re Jim Ryun without considering altitude in ‘68, being tripped in ‘72, basically acting like Armstronglivs does with Jakob.

probably true. he didn't lead, he ran Xtra, and he basically didn't get any drafting despite not leading. he worked pretty much that whole race. tuck in jakob!