There was a certain sarcasm in athletics because Jakob Ingebrigtsen, the Norwegian who has been sweeping the 1,500 and 5,000 races for years, had lost a couple of titles in recent years, always in the shortest event, to two British rebels. First, the Englishman Jake Wightman at the World Cup in Eugene and, a season later, with almost no time to heal, the Scot Josh Kerr at the World Cup in Budapest. So when the man who fueled his reputation as invincible was harassed in the last round of the European Athletics Championships by the Englishman George Mills, the son of Danny Mills, a former player of the English soccer team that played in the 2002 World Cup , Ingebrigtsen must have thought that up to this point, that he was fine, that he was not going to give in every year to a card, different from the deck. So he lengthened his pace and with a final lap in 54 seconds he eliminated Mills, whom he left more than a second behind, the Swiss Lubalu, bronze, and the two Spaniards: Thierry Ndikumwenayo, somewhat clumsy in a tactical race, and Adel Mechaal , who ended up surpassing his compatriot to snatch fourth place.
Jakob Ingebrigtsen, who let himself go after crossing the finish line while raising his index finger towards the audience that was screaming excitedly in the blue, very blue, stands of an Olympic Stadium where the screams bounce off the roof and multiply to the greater ecstasy of athletes like Ingebrigtsen, who is within reach, at only 23 years old, of her third double of 1,500 and 5,000 in a European Championship. Mills, who had only been able to be U18 European champion in 2016, makes his debut on an important podium. The bronze falls into the hands of Dominic Lobalu, an athlete who was born in South Sudan, who moved to Kenya to run with a team of refugees and who a few years ago, when he was going to compete in a race in Switzerland, escaped from the team after of asking what the prize was for the race they were going to run and seeing that they responded with evasions.
Mechaal was satisfied with this fourth place. Quite the opposite of Ndikumwenayo, who arrived with the best world record of the year after his performance in Oslo (12m48.10s) days ago, but who did not know how to manage a much slower race (the Norwegian won with 13m20.11s), with a legion of rivals (27 athletes in the final) who seemed to intimidate a runner who is a blade of grass, less than 50 kilos and 1.60. A year ago, in Budapest, he paid for the mistake of going too far back. He ran out of time to react when the race was stretched and he couldn’t reach the final. A painful setback. This time he finished fifth and perhaps it bothered him that he had not yet been able to start doing anaerobic work because his main objective is the Paris Games.
The only good news for the athlete born in Burundi is that on Wednesday, on the closing day, the calendar offers him a rematch with the 10,000 final. There he arrives with fewer spotlights — he has the fourth best European record of the year — and the anger of the lost medal in the 5,000 final. A pain that pushed him to go through the mixed zone without making any statements.
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