Is Jakob Ingebrigtsen Making His Half Marathon Debut in Copenhagen on Sunday? He Won’t Say

In recent days, there has been an excited buzz amongst distance aficionados about the rumor that two-time Olympic champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen will be making his much anticipated half-marathon debut on Sunday at the Copenhagen Half Marathon, where he’d join a loaded field that already includes half marathon world record holder Jacob Kiplimo of Uganda and reigning world half marathon champion Sabastian Sawe of Kenya.

Ever since Jakob was a teen and his threshold/V02 max testing was publicized in the press, people have been speculating about what he could run for a half marathon. In January 2018, when Jakob was just 17, Aftenposten published an article on Jakob’s amazing test results. In the article, his father and then coach Gjert said he believed Jakob could break 60:00 for the half marathon right then, while the researcher who did the tests, Leif Inge Tjelta, was so stunned he wanted to run them again to make sure they were correct. He called them colossal and said no other Norwegian had tested anything close to what Jakob achieved.

Since then, Jakob has done nothing to downplay what he could achieve in longer distance races. Earlier this year in a profile in The Times, Jakob said, “I am a half-marathon man. That’s where I am best. I get a bit worse the further I do down in distance. At 10k I’m a bit worse, and at 5k I’m a bit worse again, and then the same for the 1,500m. I’m an endurance athlete. The 1,500m is my worst event.”

Today, at the pre-meet press conference for the Allianz Memorial Van Damme, the 2024 Diamond League final in Brussels where Jakob will race the 1500m tomorrow, Ingebrigtsen was asked directly if he will be racing the Copenhagen Half. He refused to confirm or deny that he’d be in Copenhagen.

“I’m focused on tomorrow’s race and what I’m going to do in my season break, that I don’t know. But I’m focused and well-prepared, I believe, for the race tomorrow. I’ve been doing mostly specific work for the 1500 since the beginning of May…I’m going to compete tomorrow first, and then what I do after that, I don’t know,” said the 23-year-old Ingebrigtsen, who turns 24 next Thursday.

“I come from a philosophy that is based around strength and running a lot of mileage and doing a lot of work around threshold. But at the same time, that’s really not something that’s on my mind right now. I’m hopefully winning tomorrow and performing and doing a good race there and what happens after that, I don’t know.”

So Ingebrigtsen clearly didn’t deny he’s running Copenhagen. Additionally, it’s certainly worth noting if you go to the race’s tracking app, there is an athlete with bib #2 who doesn’t have a name but does have the same age as Jakob Ingebrigtsen (20-24), albeit the country is listed as Denmark. Is that a placeholder for Jakob? Time will tell.

Talk about Ingegrigtsen’s 1500 race in Brussels and his potential half-marathon race in Copenhagen on the world-famous LetsRun.com fan forum:

• Rumour in Norway that Jakob will run Copenhagen Half on Sunday. 
• Will 3:26.00 fall in Brussels? Update: We doubt it as we’ve been told pacing lights will be set for 3:30.00 

Jakob 13.1 Talk From The Archives:
January 2018: Father of Jakob Ingebrigtsen belive Jakob could run a half-marathon under 60min under an interview lately
October 2018: Jakob Ingebrigtsen: Measures higher treshold than ever before – between 21-22 km/h (half marathon under 1h as 18y)
December 2023: Could Jakob Ingebrigtsen run 56 minute for the half marathon?!
March 2024: Awesome Jakob Ingebrigtsen profile in The Times: When I’m done, I want there to be no doubt I’m the GOAT.