Jake Wightman is out of Olympics

Jake Wightman is out of the Olympics

“Jake Wightman has been forced to withdraw from the Team GB athletics squad due to a hamstring injury. The 2022 World 1500m champion was due to compete in the men’s 800m heats on Wednesday 7 August”.

A 2 sentence announcement from British Athletics communicated the desperately sad news that Jake Wightman’s bad luck story has taken another unkind twist. In July 2022, in the world 1500-meter final, Jake overtook the stand-out favorite, Jakob Ingebrigtsen, to win the gold medal. Sadly injured deprived him of the chance to defend his title in Budapest last year. In 2024, he was fit again, but a minor injury caused him to withdraw from the GB championships and selection trials.

(Under the complicated British selection rules the top two in any event are automatically selected along with any individual medalist from last year’s world championship. Individual medalists have to run in the trials but not necessarily in their main event. With Josh Kerr – world championship gold medalist at 1500 – opting to run the 800 at trials, Jake’s only chance off selection was the third (discretionary) place in the 800 which he duly received.)

Speaking to the British media last week – before the injury withdrawal – he reflected on his frustration since the 2022 Oregon World Championships: “Yeah,  it was cruel in a lot of ways. Just that you get given that title of being the best in the world on that day and then not being able to get back to that point in that event since. I was content enough with it last year because I was like ‘whatever, I’ll be there in the mix in Paris over that distance against Josh, against Jakob, against everybody else’. I always believed that and even from Pre 2024, where I ran OK, but I knew that I had a fair bit to go still to be able to be at my best – and then to not be able to show that is frustrating. I think it’ll be hard when the 1500 final goes off in Paris before my [800] race. I think because it’ll be what I initially thought was going to be the pinnacle of my season, but I’ve had a lot of time to realise that that isn’t the case now.”

On that press briefing, Jake was remarkably positive and thankful that he was going to have an opportunity to run in the Olympics allbeit not in his strongest event, the 1500. But he was very positive about running the 800 saying that in an interrupted year his total mileage might have been a problem for 1500 but would be fine for 800. He also suggested that he is a better 800 runner than many people give him credit for. But the opportunity to show that has now been taken away.

The only positive in the sad story is that Elliot Giles who was tripped in the trials while in 3rd place but who was omitted from the team when Wightman was chosen, has not been given a chance to run in the Olympic 800.

In July 2022 Jake Wightman was on top of the world. He had done what some people did not think was possible, beating Ingebrigtsen in a major 1500 final. Since then everything has been a nightmare with Wightman losing the opportunity to defend his world title and to run in the Olympics. At 30, there’s a question how about whether he will still be competitive at the next Olympics. A sad, sad story.