BACK FROM THE FLORIDA SUN, WIGHTMAN READY TO RACE AT NEW BALANCE INDOOR GP
By David Monti, @d9monti
(c) 2026 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved, used with permission.
BOSTON (23-Jan) — Two weeks ago a reporter ran into 2022 World 1500m champion Jake Wightman in a supermarket in Tallahassee. Wightman, who was shopping for energy bars, explained that it was Tallahassee’s great running trails which brought him to Florida, not the World Athletics Cross Country Championships, although he did plan to attend as a spectator.
“I was tempted to do the (4 x 2000m) relay,” he explained, checking his vibrating mobile phone and seeing that his fiancée, Georgie Hartigan, was trying to reach him. “But I didn’t want to risk it.”
Wightman, 31, who suffered both a foot fracture and a hamstring tear which prevented him from competing in both the 2023 World Athletics Championships and the 2024 Olympic Games, didn’t like the looks of “Alligator Alley,” the log obstacle organizers had placed on the Tallahassee course. Coming off of a silver medal in last September’s World Athletics Championships 1500m in Tokyo, Wightman has to be cautious as he prepares for a major championships year where he is likely to represent Scotland in the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in July, and Great Britain in the European Athletics Championships in Birmingham in August.
Wightman chose to begin his year with two and a half weeks of training in Florida to dodge the cold British winter, enjoy Tallahassee’s soft trails and the excellent track at Florida State University, and get into the right time zone for his opening meets of the year, the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix here on Saturday, and the Millrose Games in New York a week from Sunday. He’ll run the 2000-meters in Boston –a distance he’s never raced– and he’ll be competing against two of the United States’ best athletes, double-Olympic bronze medalist Grant Fisher and 2023 world road mile champion Hobbs Kessler. He’s not sure what to expect.
“I just want to race; that’s what this indoor season is about,” Wightman told reporters at a news conference here this morning. “Two-K is something that, again, I have no idea what I can run for it. I’ll tell you tomorrow evening how it goes, but it’s over-distance. That’s the whole point of this indoor season. I’m trying to get stronger for the winter for the outdoors.”
On Tallahassee’s trails, Wightman built his initial fitness base for this indoor season which, he said, would not include the World Athletics Indoor Championships in March.
“It was just the chance to get some warmth,” he said. “The weather back in the U.K. is pretty terrible, as you can imagine. The weather in Florida probably wasn’t that nice the whole time. I was the coldest I’ve ever been on a long run on Sunday. I thought I was going to faint because my hands were so cold. I did not think that Florida got like that.”
Wightman has a solid record at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix, but has yet to win a race. In four previous appearances he has finished second each time, including in 2020 where he set a national indoor record for 1000m, 2:17.51, which is still his personal best. The British record for 2000m is 4:57.09 by John Mayock from 2001. For context, that’s the same as running a 3:59 mile then holding the same pace for another 391 meters.
“I’m not having a full indoor season; I’m not doing world indoors,” said Wightman, who is sponsored by New Balance and whose management agency, Global Athletics, organizes tomorrow’s meet. “I just get into as good a shape as I can for this meet. I’ll try and win it. It would be nice (to win) in my home meet both with Global and New Balance. It’s cool that it’s a good opportunity to win for both of those.”
After missing the 2024 Olympics, Wightman ran a more condensed program for 2025 leading up to the World Championships. A 3:47.82 mile at the Prefontaine Classic last July showed clearly that he had regained his previous fitness, and his silver medal performance in Tokyo wasn’t a surprise to those who follow the sport closely. He led the race going into the homestretch, but was pipped at the line by Portugal’s Isaac Nader who beat him by just 2/100ths of a second. Instead of being disappointed, Wightman was full of gratitude.
“The only way I could have topped that was with a win,” he told reporters. “There was nothing more I could have done.”
Wightman feels thankful to be back at the top of the sport. To miss a World Championships and an Olympic Games back-to-back was hard for the three-time New Balance Fifth Avenue Mile champion. He’s keenly aware of how fragile his athletic gifts really are.
“I think having not raced a champs for a couple of years in ’23 and ’24 it was like reminding myself that that’s what you’re trying to do (to) get on a start line and race, especially coming into a race healthy and fit. You can’t take that for granted.”
Wightman’s father, Geoff, moderated today’s press conference. When a young reporter asked the elder Wightman to provide some words of encouragement to his son, he paused. Then with a smile he said: “It’s not his first rodeo. I would just say when the gun goes, keep turning left and follow Grant Fisher.”
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