It is difficult to be Jakob Ingebrigtsen, to have so much talent and not be loved by everyone. Not by his father, who exploited and mistreated him to turn him into his great self-taught trainer’s trophy, nor by a large part of the fans, who do not cheer him as they cheered Mondo Duplantis when he came out onto the track, five minutes before his fall. He comes out last, still an Olympic champion, and, ready for absolute sacrifice, he raises the index finger of his right hand high, so that everyone can see who is number one. And his gesture arouses indifference, if not animosity. Pride, or the appearance of it, is punished in a world in which humility, even false, is a value. And the cry of defiance to the tyrant, the most followed. They forget his generosity with the middle distance, with the 1,500m, the race of the British nobles and of the thoroughbreds of the whole world. Because thanks to him, even when defeated, all those who beat him and almost all those who follow him achieve the best mark of their lives.
With 80 metres to go, they rush at him like wild beasts and devour him, an exhausted hunter, on his right, Josh Kerr, the one who crushed him in Budapest, and on his left, glued to the tape, on the inside, a rat-catcher, Cole Hocker, a Christian from Indianapolis forced by his faith, because he proclaims, “God has given me a gift and my obligation is to give the best of myself,” and he, Jakob, the proud one, is out of breath. Kerr believes himself to be the winner, he underestimates Hocker and his confidence, who does not stop, who continues and continues and surpasses him, and finishes off the Norwegian on the outside Yared Nuguse, the American roommate in Boulder, Colorado, of Mario García Romo, the Salamanca native who was so short in Paris. The first three go under 3m 28s, a barrier that only six athletes have broken in the history of the event. Hocker wins and, as the final blow, with his 3m 27.65s, beats the Olympic record that Ingebrigtsen had set at 3m 28.32s in Tokyo, in a similar race but with a happy ending. Kerr, second, 3m 27.79s, beats the British record, an important distinction in the country of Steve Ovett, Sebastian Coe and Steve Cram. Nuguse, third, 3m 27.80s, also achieves the best time of his life, and even Ingebrigtsen, killed, knocked down, beats his own Olympic record to finish fourth (3m 28.24s).
Eight years after Jim Centrowitz in Rio (in a final won over 3m 50s, before the shoe revolution), Hocker, 23, returns the 1,500m crown to the United States, a country that will never stop mourning its Jim Ryun, the best middle-distance runner they have ever known, who was never an Olympic champion.
And the Norwegian is fourth. He is white, a child prodigy of television and the track who at 17 won the European Championships in the 1,500m and 5,000m in three unique days in Berlin. He brought the Olympic title back to Europe by snatching it from the wonderful African middle-distance runner at the Tokyo Games. He was able to rebel against his abusive father. To abandon him. To grow up free. They all train like him, with double threshold, measuring lactates, measuring loads, the Ingebrigtsen method, which has revolutionised middle-distance running as much as shoe technology. He should be the beloved hero, and yet, when, as always, he puts himself in front of everyone, front runner who only follows his idea, his rhythm, the fans pray for those who follow him, they motivate them, don’t give up, you can do it, you can almost hear it. May the mighty fall.
He is followed by the usual suspects, those he destroyed in the Tokyo final: the boastful Scotsman Josh Kerr, third in Tokyo, with his atomic glasses, the one who already defeated him in the final of the World Championships in Budapest; the Kenyan Tim Cheruiyot, second in Tokyo; and the unexpected American, Cole Hocker, with such an ugly and effective style, a kind of Michael Johnson of the 1,500m, his hips lowered, as if he were a wheelbarrow. Waiting, calculating with his tongue hanging out, because the pace is neither easy – 54.82s for the 400m, 1m 51.82s for the 800m – nor is it continuous. He is not a typical hare. He is a 1,500m champion who easily wins the 5,000m events, the secondary ones, but who has been defeated in the last two World Championships, he has been second. He accelerates and decelerates, trying to break the breath of those who follow and wait, who stretch and regroup to the rhythm of his steps. When the bell rings, the race speeds up even more. Ingebrigtsen quickens his pace, his penultimate change, the sustained change designed to finish them all off. But those chasing him do not let up. They wait. They wait. The most impatient, Josh Kerr, unleashes his blast at 250m, on the back straight, as he did a triumphant year ago in Budapest. It is the one Ingebrigtsen was waiting for, 24 years old and it already seems like a century, so long has he dominated the middle distance, he reigns. He responds, he holds on. They pass the 1,200m in 2m 47.27s.
In the most dense 1500m in history, in the fastest Olympic final by positions, everything is decided in 13 seconds, in the last 100m, in less, in 10 seconds, in the last 80. They thus complete a final 400m in 54.26 seconds. Everyone attacks. Everyone has strength and rage. Ingebrigtsen, the god, falls. At the Stade de France, a fresh breeze announces the end of the second wave of heat waves along the Seine at dusk.
You can follow EL PAÍS Sports on Facebook and Xor sign up here to receive the Daily newsletter of the Paris Olympic Games.
