Sometimes it seemed there was a better field watching the men’s world championships 1500 metres final than there was running it.
Jakob Ingebrigtsen couldn’t run himself into fitness – not 1500 fitness, anyway; he may still win his third straight 5000 gold – in time. Out he went in the heats. Cole Hocker looked for an inside run that wasn’t there in his 1500 semi-final, barged his way through impeding others in a packed bunch fighting for the six qualifying places, and was DQed.
Hocker was the only one of the US’s formidable Olympic trio to even reach Tokyo. Yared Nuguse and Hobbs Kessler didn’t even make the team. Australia’s challenge evaporated in the heats. Even into the final the carnage continued, defending champion Josh Kerr – who had looked in formidable shape – sustained an injury in the third lap and leaped forlornly to the finish.
Someone had to win it. Isaac Nader did. Moreover he did it with an unanswerable final sprint, catching 2022 champion Jake Wightman inches from the line to win by two hundredths of a second 3:34.10 to 3:34.12.
Poor Wightman, who missed last year’s Olympics injured, did absolutely everything right. But he did not win. Niels Laros led at a moderate pace, neither dangerously fast nor ploddingly slow. They passed through 800 in a tick under two minutes, Timothy Cheruiyot, Laros, Wightman and Reymond Cheruiyot.
The third lap saw the inevitable injection of pace. Cheruiyot, Laros and Wightman leading through a 55.5 lap. Wightman launched his sprint at the 300 with a bunch at his heels, knowing he had to sustain through the final 300 metres. He managed it for about 299.99 metres. Nader grabbed him in the last stride, something like Noah Lyles did to Kishane Thompson in the Paris Olympic 100.
The winner has improved a second or so each of the past three years. Three 31, then 3:30 and then 3:29. He burst into attention when he won Oslo’s Dream Mile this year, then had strong runs in Ostrava, London and Brussels before an uncharacteristically poor tenth in the Zurich DL final.
But he got it right when it counted. The muddling pace setting him up perfectly to deploy his devastating finish. Pretty well every runner in this final could have won the gold medal. Isaac Nader did.
What a race. If there was a better field watching, they would certainly have enjoyed it.
There was drama of a different sort in the night’s other distance race, the women’s 3000 metres steeple.
It seemed to be a race that was Winfred Yavi’s to lose. World champion, Olympic champion, second-fastest all-time behind only Beatrice Chepkoech. The Kenyan0born Bahraini has it all.
It was her predecessor as Olympic champion, Peruth Chemutai, who did the leading, the first 1000 metres going by at 8:50 pace. Chemutai employs that strange, two-footed tuck technique in clearing the barriers and this night her timing seemed to be off. She clipped one hurdle, one of her opponents generously offering a steadying hand, then another.
The third time Chemutai fell – heavily, and she lay on the track, barely moving. It took most of a full lap for a medical assessment to be made and she was lifted off the track as Yavi and Faith Cherotich approached the barrier.
The drama continued. Cherotich and Yavi approached the final water jump together, but Cherotich came out of it with a winning lead. The former world junior champion, Commonwealth champion and Olympic medalist raced home a winner in a championship record 8:51.59. Yavi trailed in some five seconds behind with Ethiopia’s Sembo Almayew also under nine minutes with 8:58.86 for the bronze.
And now the 5000 metres races await.