Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen put the disappointment of his 1,500 loss to Great Britain’s Jake Wightman behind him with a great display in the 5,000 final at the Eugene World Championships, which he controlled at will over the last 900 meters.
The Olympic 1,500 champion took the lead at that point and modulated his speed to pull further and further away from his rivals as he approached the finish line.
and won with a time of 13:09.24, followed by another Jacob, Kenyan Krop (13:09.98), and Ugandan Oscar Chelimo (13:10.20), while Guatemalan Luis Grijalva, as brave as in the first round, finished fourth, 24 hundredths of a second behind the bronze medal.
Cheptegei, melted
A week after winning the gold medal in the 10,000 meters, Ugandan Olympic champion Joshua Cheptegei faced in the 5,000 the opportunity to finish off the world double of the distance, but he was always badly placed and in the last lap he had nothing left. He finished ninth, still four places ahead of the champion of the two previous editions, the Ethiopian Muktar Edriss.
Cheptegei, the world record holder, took the lead on the first lap after a first dodge by “dreamer” Luis Grijalva. He covered the first 1,000 in 2:36.58 with the plan to punish the legs of Ingebrigtsen, a 3:28.32 1,500 man who went out to lane five to pick up a drink at the refreshment table.
Before the second kilometer mark, the Kenyans took the lead of the group but did not pick up the pace. The Norwegian was running on the outside, ready to go on any attack, and took the lead with 900 to go. From there, until the finish line, he behaved with enormous solvency. No one threatened his victory.
