There are certain athletes that come around once every decade or so who challenge the possibilities of athletic achievement that leaves the average person awe-stricken.
These types of athletes look at a record that is deemed unbreakable by nearly everyone as a chance to prove their capabilities. These athletes often train to the point where they sacrifice their own mental and physical health, as well as personal relationships in their quest for athletic immortality.
Jakob Ingebrigtsen is one of those athletes.
The 21-year-old from Sandnes, Norway, is no stranger to these feelings as he trained for the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics where he won the gold medal in the men’s 1500 meter final in Olympic record-breaking fashion of 3 minutes, 28.32 seconds.
He did so while also taking down fierce rival and then-world leader, Kenyan runner Timothy Cheruiyot, who finished just behind him and took the silver medal.
Prior to the final race, many experts marked Cheruiyot as the odds-on favorite to take home the gold. That only added fuel to Ingrebrigtsen’s fire.
In what was the fastest 1500-meter race ever run, Ingrebrigsten proved that the moment was not too big for him.
“I will not be satisfied until I become the fastest ever,” Ingebrigtsen told European Athletics.
This fiery mentality didn’t come out of nowhere.
Growing up in a family of athletes, Ingebrigtsen learned from his older brothers Henrik and Filip, who paved the path for him by achieving world class times of their own. When he became the youngest European champion ever at 17 years old and beat out his older brothers in the same race, it was clear there was a new top runner in the family.
His breakthrough moment in Tokyo didn’t absolve him from losing completely, but he is still the world’s No. 1 runner in the 1500 meters.
Ingebrigtsen did have one race where he fell short of Cheruiyot since the Olympics. Just a month after the Olympic final, Ingebrigtsen crossed the finish line eight hundredths of a second behind the first-place-finishing Cheruiyot at a Diamond League race in Zurich, Switzerland.
Since then, he hasn’t lost an outdoor race in the 1500 meters or mile.
That isn’t to say he hasn’t raced against competitors other than Cheruiyot that have tested his dominance in the 1500 meters.
Samuel Tefera of Ethiopia is an athlete that many experts around the sport feel has the best shot of beating Ingebrigtsen in Eugene this summer. Tefera has proved that he is capable of the feat at the World Indoor Championships this year when he took first place — .25 seconds ahead of Ingebrigtsen.
The World Athletics Championships 1500-meter title is, of course, the top priority at the moment, but Ingebrigtsen isn’t one of those athletes that shies away from making bold statements.
“Been there, done that. Let’s be the first to do back-to-back-to-back,” Ingebrigtsen showed reporters what he wrote on a goal-card after his back-to-back Bowerman mile win at the Prefontaine Classic.
Already boasting some illustrious accomplishments, Ingebrigtsen has done what so many distance runners have dreamed of achieving. With that being said, it begs the question: what’s left?
He comes back to Eugene in mid July with one thing on his mind.
“I have yet to win a world championship, so this is my main focus,” Ingebritsen told reporters after his last Diamond League race of 2021.
The final will be a hot race in more ways than one. High temperatures lean towards lower times from the athletes and if Ingebritsen is in top-notch form like we’ve seen from him in the biggest moments, a record breaking time isn’t something that can be ruled out.
