Summary
Josh Kerr might be the returning champion, but over the last 5 seasons, a lot of potential challengers have emerged in this event. 2022 champion Jake Whightman and 2019 champion Timothy Cheruiyot are back. 2020 Olympic champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen, #4 all time and 2024 Olympic champion Cole Hocker #8 all time are also entered. Earlier in the season Azeddine Habz ran the #6 time in history to become the world leader. Kerr ranks #8, Cheruiyot #13. Yared Nuguse #11, George Mills #14 and Brian Komen #18 didn't even make their respective national teams, while Mohamed Katir #16 is on a drug suspension. Including the Mile, youngsters Niels Laros #7 and Reynold Cheruiyot (unrelated to Timothy) #18 were fast this year.
With so much talent, the heats and semi-finals were going to be competitive. Ingebrigtsen spent the year dealing with an injury making this his first race of the year. He couldn't get out of the heats, nor could Habz or Cameron Myers. [3] With only 6 qualifying in each semi, both races finished within a .3 second spread. Narve Gilje Nordås and Raphael Pallitsch missed qualifying by .01 seconds. Hocker finished second in his semi, but while being boxed coming down the home stretch in traffic, he squeezed in front of Robert Farken causing Farken to lose his stride. Hocker was disqualified and Farken was advanced to the final by the referee. The Jury of Appeals also advanced Federico Riva to the final making it 14 competitors. [4]
Coming off the start line, a wall of about 6 competitors looked at each other trying to decide who would be relegated to lead. Laros became the nominee. Kerr notably made a beeline to the inner lane near the back of the pack. With his training partner on the front, Timothy went from the back of the pack to the front to form a wall that would last the first 650 metres when Timothy took his turn to lead the next lap. 950 metres into the race while being passed by Farken, Kerr jumped up and winced, even taking one step inside the curb. He started running awkwardly. The defending champion was out of the running.
As they approached the bell, the pack tightened up to 4 wide behind Cheruiyot and Laros. Finally on the backstretch, Wightman sprinted around the wall into the lead. With Wightman ahead, no other competitor got past the wall until the halfway up the home stretch, when Reynold edged ahead. Sprinting from fifth place, Isaac Nader went past all of them, catching Wightman 2 metres before the finish line. Reacting to the surprise challenge, Wightman made a desperate dip for the line, later falling to the track, tripping Reynold in the process. Nader looked up at the scoreboard confused until seeing the confirmation that he had won. [5] Nader's winning time was around five seconds slower than the two previous runnings of the event at global championships. [2] Writing for Reuters , Mitch Phillips described Nader as a "shock winner". [6] The determined defending champion, Kerr still managed to finish in 4:11, fighting through the injury. [7]
This page is based on this
Wikipedia article Text is available under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
