The masterful and seemingly indefatigable Jakob Ingebrigtsen completed a 1500/3000m double at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Nanjing on Sunday (23).
In doing so, Ingebrigtsen emulates the Ethiopian great Haile Gebrselassie who achieved the same double all the way back at the 1999 edition in Maebashi. Ingebrigtsen also takes his tally of major senior titles up to an incredible 22 across all distances and surfaces at the age of 24.
Less than a day after running down and sprinting past Ethiopia’s Berihu Aregawi for the 3000m title, Ingebrigtsen took control of the 1500m final from an earlier stage, holding off anyone who dared to challenge the Norwegian great for victory in 3:38.79.
In a repeat of the 2023 European Athletics Indoor Championships final in Istanbul, British team captain Neil Gourley won silver behind Ingebrigtsen in 3:39.07 with Luke Houser from the United States - a training partner of Ingebrigtsen’s nemesis and reigning world outdoor 1500m champion Josh Kerr - taking bronze in 3:39.58.
This was a classic Ingebrigtsen performance who hit the front just after before the 700 metre-mark and wound the pace up imperceptibly but incessantly, covering the last 800 metres of the final in 1:50.55.
For Ingebrigtsen, this completes a perfect indoor season which began with a world indoor mile record of 3:45.15 in Lievin - he also broke his 1500m record en route with 3:29.63 - before completing 1500/3000m doubles at both the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Apeldoorn and the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Nanjing.
Silver and another fast time for Kambundji in the 60m hurdles
Two weeks after winning European indoor gold in Apeldoorn in a European record of 7.67, Switzerland’s Ditaji Kambundji added world indoor silver to her list of accolades in the 60m hurdles.
In the highest quality 60m hurdles final in history, Devynne Charlton from the Bahamas won the title in 7.72 by just 0.01 from Kambundji with Jamaica’s Ackera Nugent taking the bronze in 7.74.
Poland’s Pia Skrzyszowska just missed out on a medal in fourth with the same time but the 2022 European 100m hurdles champion did have the consolation of breaking the long-standing Polish indoor record of 7.77 which had stood to Zofia Bielczyk since 1980.
And despite clocking 7.76, Nadine Visser had to settle for sixth despite running a time which would have won gold as recently as the 2022 World Athletics Indoor Championships.
In other finals, Belgium's Eliott Crestan and Spain's Elvin Josue Canales won silver and bronze respectively in the men's 800m final in 1:44.81 and 1:45.03 respectively in a race won by Josh Hoey from the United States in 1:44.77.
There was also a surprise medal in the women's 800m final for Portugal's Patricia Silva who ran a measured race to win bronze in a national indoor record of 1:59.80. In doing so, Silva follows in her footsteps of her father Rui Silva who won the 1500m title on home soil at the 2001 World Athletics Indoor Championships in Lisbon.
Olympic bronze medallist Georgia Hunter-Bell also won bronze in the 1500m in 3:59.84, her first ever sub-4:00 clocking indoors.
Steven Mills for European Athletics