by Stuart Weir
An exciting Men’s 1500!
The men’s 1500 meters was supposed to be all about Josh Kerr and whether he could retain the title he won in Budapest two years ago, With Jakob Ingebrigtsen not fully fit and not making the final, Josh’s main rival, we were told, was the up and coming Niels Laros. Josh settled in the middle of the pack, seemingly boxed in, Then he stumbled, limped, stopped and re-started but was never in the race. According to the UK Athletics press release, he “suffered an injury at the midway point and battled to the line in 4:11.23”. Steve Cram on BBC commentary said that he suspected that Josh was carrying an injury going into the race.
Ironically Josh had told the GB media earlier this month: “From a fitness standpoint, a mentality standpoint, I’ve never been so confident and relaxed going into a championship”.
Jake Wightman ran a very astute race, tracking the leaders and then taking the lead with about 200m to go – reminiscent of Eugene Worlds 2022 . He led to the line but was overtaken by Isaac Nader who won by two hundredths of a second in 3:34.10. The Cheruiyots (Reynold and Timothy) took third and fourth. Laros only fifth.
Speaking to a number of British track and field writers a week before the Champs, Jake had explained the frustrations of the last three years and what kept him going in the dark days: “A lot of it is just the sense of feeling like I’m not done. And I don’t look back on the years I’ve had with injuries and stuff like that like. If you isolate anyone of them, they’re pretty grim. But I had a whole spell of about nine years before that, where I didn’t actually get many injuries and that culminated in winning a world title. Some would say if that was the high point and if it was going to followed by a couple low points, then you would take it”. He explained further that he was in a very positive mindset with regard to Tokyo: “As we were leaving St. Moritz (Switzerland) a couple days ago, I was thinking that I didn’t get to this point the last couple years. So it’s a big milestone to have done all my training and actually got here. I’m not on a start line yet, but I feel like I’m in a very good position to be with five days to go. It’s nice. You forget what this environment is like. It’s the reward, in some ways, getting to this point and being around the team. I love being in a hotel where there’s all the other nations and you see people that you see on the circuit, or you haven’t maybe seen for a while. And it’s a bit more territorial. But that’s the kind of thing about Games and Championships that I probably really enjoy – that you have a lot more of a team element to it.
Afterwards Jake explained what his approach to the race had been: “I was always going to try and do that. My big thing is I race to win and I knew there was going to be opportunities to try and do that and I thought I had it. I knew there was an opportunity to get a medal, an opportunity to win it and I came close. I did everything I possibly could. The last couple of years have been pretty grim. I think it will be in the next few hours that I realise how big a deal it is to come back and overcome the problems I have had, as it was bleak. But in my mind I always believed I could come back and do this.
“The only way I could have topped that is with a win, but there is nothing else I could have done. To get that close, it is bitter sweet. But I am glad to come out with something. It has been a very long time. That I am still at the level I want to be, is very satisfying. I didn’t think anyone was going to come past me. I’ve got to be proud that I gave everything I possibly could have. It’s nice to know that I can come back and compete at this level because there were periods where I thought that wasn’t really possible. To get three of us British athletes in the final shows how strong British running is right now.
“But fair pay to Nader – he ran a very, very good race – he ran an outrageous last hundred to get me. When you just go to race like that and it comes down to the last 200, it can be anybody’s race and I am glad I was the one out there. Nader came from nowhere. I don’t think anyone would have predicted that podium if you look at that race on the start line. It is the same story every year in the 1500m, whoever goes in as the favourite always seems to have a bit too much of a target. I don’t think one person would have expected Nader to win that”.
A exciting race with an unexpected finish.
