After losing a fourth global champs on the trot in the metric mile, the Norwegian faces ‘stick or twist’ dilemma
In the movie Edge of Tomorrow, Tom Cruise find himself in a Groundhog Day time-loop where he’s trying to bring down an alien invasion. Every time he dies, he wakes up and starts the day again, getting a little closer to his goal with each attempt.
Jakob Ingebrigtsen must feel a bit like this in global championship 1500m races. After winning Olympic gold in 2021, he’s been out-kicked by Samuel Tefera to the 2022 world indoor title in Belgrade, Jake Wightman to 2022 world outdoor gold in Eugene, Josh Kerr at the 2023 world outdoors in Budapest and now Cole Hocker in the Paris Olympics. To add insult to injury, he didn’t win a medal in the latter either.
In comparison, over 5000m he’s won the last two world titles and this year’s Olympic crown with relative ease. Given this, some suggest he should cut his losses with the 1500m and focus on longer events.
The topic even came up in Ingebrigtsen’s press conference after his 5000m win in Paris. Sitting alongside him, Grant Fisher, the 5000m and 10,000m bronze medallist in Paris, described the 1500m as the “marquee event” of the Games and that abandoning it would be an “overreaction”.
There are plenty of examples of great athletes throughout history persisting with an event before finally tasting success. Seb Coe lost major championships at 800m in 1978, 1980, 1982 and 1984 before out-kicking Steve Cram and Tom McKean in the “Spitfires out of the sun” European final of 1986.
Coe, McKean and Cram in 1986 (Mark Shearman)
So the question isn’t so much whether Ingebrigtsen should stick with 1500m but what tactics should he use? Leading at close to world record pace (400m in 54.8 and 800m in 1:51.5) didn’t work for him in Paris. So what are the options?
Run even faster
Hicham El Guerrouj’s world record pace from 1998 saw the Moroccan clock 54.3 for 400m and 1:50.7 for 800m en route to his 3:26.00. If Ingebrigtsen gets himself in such shape next year, he could potentially run the legs off his rivals. Two problems, though. His rivals are increasingly able to handle such paces. El Guerrouj had a pacemaker too.
Start fast and get faster
Nick Willis, the two-time Olympic 1500m medallist from New Zealand, suggested recently that if Ingebrigtsen led at a brisk pace during the early stages, his rivals would have to waste energy behind jostling for position and running wide. The strategy would involve Ingebrigtsen leading at an honest (but not crazy) pace for maybe 800m and then winding it up more aggressively over the final 700m, but after having run the entire race on the kerb.
Mid-race surge
Let’s call this the Jürgen Straub strategy. In the 1980 Olympic final, Straub led through 800m in a slow 2:04.9 but then injected a 54.2 third lap. Coe and Steve Ovett were stretched to their limit and, while Straub didn’t win, he took a surprise silver ahead of Ovett. Of course, Straub was part of East German system but the tactical lesson still applies.
Hicham El Guerrouj (Mark Shearman)
Employ an unofficial pacemaker
This is a controversial and frowned upon tactic in major championships but El Guerrouj used it several times at his peak. In the 2000 Olympic final in Sydney his fellow countryman Youssef Baba led through 400m in 54.14 although Baba let the pace slip on the second lap (1:54.77 at 800m), at which point El Guerrouj took it up, and after failing to drop his rivals the Moroccan was out-kicked by Noah Ngeny of Kenya.
His tactics of using a team-mate as a sacrificial hare did work at the 1999 and 2001 world championships, however, when Adil Kaouch led in the early stages before El Guerrouj came through to win.
Somehow I can’t see Norway’s Narve Gilje Nordås helping Ingebrigtsen with the pace, though.
Work on your sprint
The Ingebrigtsen way of training is all about improving endurance. The Norwegian does short hill reps through the winter and no doubt some of his track workouts close to peaking are very fast, but maybe it’s time to devote a little more time on the ability to sprint and change gears at the end of a race?
Jakob Ingebrigtsen wins the Olympic 1500m gold (Getty)
Hope someone else leads the early stages
Timothy Cheruiyot led from 400m to 1400m in the Tokyo Olympic final (passing 800m in 1:51.8). There are a number of potential front-runners right now, too, who would enjoy a harder pace from the early stages, such as Yared Nuguse of the United States for one.
To sum up
My feeling is that Ingebrigtsen has been beaten by the better man at his last four global 1500m finals but with a best of 3:26.73 from this year (and 3:43.73 for the mile last year) it’s surely not yet time to move on from the event.
When it comes to tactics and strategy, there might be further clues this season, too, when Ingebrigtsen faces Olympic champion Cole Hocker in Lausanne on August 22 and then Hocker, Nuguse and Kerr in Zurich on September 5.
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