A Post-Olympic Hangover Cure: Men’s Middle-Distance Running in Lausanne and Silesia
Jakob Ingebrigtsen is a Time-Trialling Beast
It’s not uncommon to see an athlete who, despite not possessing world-leading personal bests, is able to put together an excellent championship resume. Mo Farah is the most obvious example: he won 10 global titles without ever troubling the all-time list.
It’s much rarer to see an athlete so untouchable on the international circuit struggle to translate that into championship success. After all, if you consistently perform as one of the fastest athletes in history and dominate the regular-season races, it stands to reason that you’ll be a heavy favourite in a global final.
Now, Jakob Ingebrigtsen’s championship record isn’t bad: twice a world champion and twice an Olympic champion, the Norwegian prodigy has plenty of gold in his trophy cabinet. However, many (himself included) expected more from his 10 starts at the global championship level.
Jakob Ingebrigtsen wins his fourth global championship from ten starts
It’s been proven six times over that Ingebrigtsen is beatable in a championship setting, but what few have been able to do is take him down on the Diamond League circuit. With a pacemaker to follow and wavelights by his side, the Norwegian simply doesn’t lose. In the absence of tactics and titles, Ingebrigtsen’s mind is free to focus on what he does best: run ridiculously fast.
On Thursday in Lausanne, Ingebrigtsen came face-to-face with the man who beat him to the Olympic 1500m gold in Paris not three weeks ago. Cole Hocker ran a phenomenal race in the Stade de France to win his maiden Olympic title, and the American went to Lausanne excited to see what he could do for an encore. It was there that Ingebrigtsen – who was only fourth in Paris – put more than two seconds into his American rival to win the race and dip under 3:28 for the second time this season.
Olympic champions Cole Hocker and Jakob Ingebrigtsen congratulate each other after finishing 1-2 in the men’s 1500m at the Lausanne Diamond League
Three days later in Silesia, the king of rabbited races was back in action, this time over 3000m. Untroubled by the stacked field, which included four of the top ten fastest 5000m runners of all time and a double Olympic medallist from Paris, Ingebrigtsen began his trademark wind-up after the pacemakers stepped off and quickly opened a gap over his competitors. Alone at the bell, the Norwegian hammered a 55-second final lap to take more than three seconds off Daniel Komen’s fabled world record.
Komen is perhaps the most underrated distance runner in history. The Kenyan would go stride for stride with the legendary Haile Gebrselassie back in the 90s, but his early retirement and lack of global titles have seen him fade from the memories of all but the most devout track fans. Nevertheless, his 1996 3000m world record of 7:20.65 has long been seen by many to be the most impressive world record in men’s distance running, despite the event not being contested at the Olympic level.
So, when Ingebrigtsen stopped the clock at 7:17.55, the running world was very impressed.
Jakob Ingebrigtsen breaks the 3000m world record
For us mere mortals, there is hardly any context in which to comprehend this performance. I can’t ask you to go down to your local track and run a kilometre in 2:25 and then imagine doing it three times in a row, because so few people can run a kilometre in 3:25, let alone 2:25. If you can run 200m in 29 seconds, you might be able to fathom how outrageous it is to do that 15 times over, but again, not many people can run that fast to begin with. I can’t ask you to go to your local gym, put the treadmill up as fast as it can go, and run on it for seven minutes and seventeen seconds, because if you did, you would finish 600m behind Ingebrigtsen (assuming you didn’t fall off).
There’s a reason this record stood for so long, and the fact that Ingebrigtsen was able to beat it so convincingly is a testament to his incredible strength. He may not have the tactical awareness of some of his competitors, nor the top speed, but he is the greatest time-triallist of this generation: and it’s not even close.
The Men’s 800m is Back
After a few years in hibernation, the men’s 800m is back in full force.
We sort of already knew this, but Lausanne and Silesia were proof that the ridiculous times we were seeing in the build-up to Paris weren’t the result of some collective, track superfan fever dream that could only have happened at the end of an Olympic cycle.
To put it into perspective, the fastest time in the world last year was 1:42.80. This year, that time would only be good enough for 27th on the annual rankings, and the season isn’t even over.
The three men largely responsible for the revival of this event are Emmanuel Wanyonyi, Marco Arop, and Djamel Sedjati. Unsurprisingly, Sedjati has been the target of a doping investigation following a drug raid of his Olympic accommodation. The Algerian shocked the world with an indomitable kick that launched him from 44th to 3rd on the all-time list in the span of a few months and made him genuinely unbeatable in the early season races. However, when something seems too good to be true it usually is, and few in the running community would have been surprised at these doping allegations.
Some officials have recently linked Djamel Sedjati to performance-enhancing drugs, although no charges have been laid at the time of writing
While the use of performance-enhancing drugs is never a good thing for the sport, the charges that will inevitably be laid against Sedjati will hopefully be at least partially overshadowed by the incredible (and, by all accounts, clean) performances of Wanyonyi and Arop. First and second at the most recent world championships, Olympics, and now Diamond League, the pair spent the week making a concerted (although ultimately unsuccessful) effort to join David Rudisha in the sub-1:41 club.
The first instalment of this campaign came in Lausanne. Arop had a small gap over Wanyonyi at halfway but was forced to swing wide to get around pacemaker Ludovic le Meur just after the bell. This allowed Wanyonyi to close the gap to his Canadian counterpart, and in a bizarre move, Arop stayed wide, which allowed Wanyonyi to pass him on the inside.
Maybe I’m reading into things, but it looked like Arop purposely hung on the outside of lane one as if to say to Wanyonyi, “this is a world record attempt, and my race has just been compromised, so you should come through and go after it yourself.” If that is what happened, then kudos to Arop - that’s a mighty display of sportsmanship and one that was totally unnecessary.
Regardless of whether it was intentional or not, Wanyonyi hit the front and stormed home to move from third to equal second on the all-time list in a new personal best of 1:41.11. It marked the fourth time this year the 20-year-old has dipped under 1:42, the most ever in a single season.
Emmanuel Wanyonyi wins the men’s 800m at the Lausanne Diamond League to become the second fastest in history
The script was flipped for instalment number two, which came three days later in Silesia. Arop once again led at the bell, but this time he was able to open up a gap over the Olympic champion to cross the line in 1:41.86 and break a four-race losing streak against Wanyonyi.
“Everyone in the 800m is so fit right now, I think every race is going to be a world record attempt. I tried to go for it today, but I think my body was still a bit tired from Lausanne,” he explained after the race.
The Canadian wasn’t the only one feeling fatigued. Two races in such close succession was too much for Wanyonyi, who finished second in a distant 1:43.23.
For the first time since Rudisha retired, it seems as though his 800m world record of 1:40.91 is in danger. It’s such a hallowed mark in athletics: run with no pacers, before supershoes, entirely from the front, and in an Olympic final, many regard it to be the greatest middle-distance race of all time. There’s only one more men’s 800m on the international calendar, so there’s every chance that record survives another year: however, Wanyonyi and Arop have made no secret about their desire to go faster, and they’re backing it up with some of the best two-lap running we’ve seen in years.
Marco Arop wins the men’s 800m at the Silesia Diamond League