The latest chapter in an epic season for the men’s 1500m saw Yared Nuguse make his mark as he glided past Jakob Ingebrigtsen on a rainswept night in Zurich to win a much-anticipated showdown in 3:29.21.
With Olympic champion Cole Hocker third, Niels Laros fourth and world champion Josh Kerr fifth, it would be natural to assume that this was the finest race of Nuguse’s career.
“Not really,” he said. “I think my Olympic bronze medal in Paris was better.”
Paris is certainly the race that mattered most in 2024, but the Weltklasse on Thursday (Sept 5) is still one of the premier meetings in the world and the metric mile had all the major contenders present.
One of the beauties of the event this year is that it has been fairly unpredictable, too, with the leading contenders all evenly matched. Hocker wasn’t the favourite to win in Paris but he sprinted to glory in style in the French capital. No one really expected Nuguse to win in Zurich either, especially as he was beaten by Elliot Giles in a road mile four days earlier in Düsseldorf.
Giles was merely the second pacemaker in Zurich as he took over from Zan Rudolf’s 55.61 and 1:51.17 opening two laps. On the third lap the pace didn’t drop either and Giles stepped out at the bell (2:46.3). At that point Ingebrigtsen took it up with Nuguse on his shoulder and then a gap of two or three metres to Kerr, Hocker and Laros.
Around the final bend, Ingebrigtsen and Nuguse were clear with the American sitting ominously on the Norwegian’s shoulder. Into the home straight he kicked past and drew clear as Ingebrigtsen clocked 3:29.52 for second with Hocker producing his usual nifty finish to take third in 3:30.46, Laros fourth in 3:31.23 and Kerr a slightly jaded fifth in 3:31.46.
“I felt really good,” said Nuguse. “The hype coming into it was ‘hang in for dear life’. But I had to put myself in a position to win and then right behind Jakob where I could stay calm and relaxed coming into that last 200m.”
After smashing the world 3000m record in Silesia late last month, Ingebrigtsen came down with an infection. “When I woke up this morning it was better than yesterday,” he said, “but when I looked at myself in the mirror I looked like shit with watery eyes.
“It’s not an ideal position to be in but good enough (to race) and I felt pretty strong. I easily could have hit the wall and run 3:32-33 but I was stronger than expected. When I woke up yesterday and put on my compression socks (to travel to Zurich), I thought ‘this is probably not a good idea’.”
Hocker said: “Everyone knows this is a different race to a championship. But it shows how competitive this top four really is. So it makes me more proud that I executed my best day at the Olympics.”
Kerr came into the race confident after a training spell in Albuquerque but he said: “Mentally it was very tiring. I don’t really have a ‘week after week time trial’ kind of brain so these sort of races are kind of boring for me sometimes. I was in a good place (fitness wise) but I didn’t have much left toward the end. It’s been a long year. And I’ve still got my favourite race of the year on Sunday (5th Ave Mile).”
Off the track there are rarely dull moments with today’s crop of milers either and after his race in Zurich the refreshingly straight-talking Ingebrigtsen made some interesting comments about cross-training that will doubtless be mulled over by the world’s leading coaches and athletes.
On hearing that Hocker does a lot of cross-training to complement his running – and of course Hocker is far from alone in doing this – Ingebrigtsen suggested it is “very strange” to do cycling, swimming (or presumably elliptical machine) workouts if you are fit and able to run without injury.
Ingebrigtsen says he only cross-trains when he cannot run and, even then, mainly just does aqua jogging. “If anybody thinks they are good at running because they do a lot of swimming then they don’t know what they’re doing,” he said bluntly.
“I complement my running with some strength training and drills but you have to maximise your running first before you start to do all the other things.”
Source: AW
