Niels Laros is undefeated over 1500m this year after wins in Brussels and Zurich
An unprecedented season has created an unusually wide field of podium contenders
Jakob Ingebrigtsen left racing to be ready to compete after achilles injury
The World Athletics Championships Tokyo 25 will begin with no clear favourite in the men’s 1500m.
This season has been characterised by exceptionally fast racing – a record 14 men have run under 3:30 this year – and a multiplicity of winners of the big races as six different men have won Diamond League events over 1500m or a mile.
In the absence of the dominant figure in the 1500m for the last four years – Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen, who sustained an achilles injury early in the year and has missed almost the entire outdoor season – the event has become unpredictable, and the race for the world title shapes as the most open in years.
The closest thing to a frontrunner is probably the 20-year-old Dutch athlete Niels Laros, who won the Diamond League Final in Zurich, and also had wins in Brussels and Eugene, which boasted one of the deepest fields of the year.
What Laros lacks in experience, he makes up for with a blistering finishing kick which is likely to stand him in good stead in a championship final. He finished sixth at the Paris Olympics but has gone to a new level this year, defeating all the main contenders and lowering the Dutch record to 3:29.20.
His back-to-back wins in Brussels and Zurich means he will go into Tokyo with momentum. If he was to win, he would be the youngest champion in the history of the event.
“I am going into Tokyo with a lot of confidence,” he confirmed in Zurich. “My coach (Tom Lewandowski) and I know that there will be high expectations, we want to be realistic. But of course, I am dreaming about the podium.”
Others dreaming of the podium will include French veteran Azeddine Habz, who has the top time of the year (3:27.49) set when gaining a narrow victory over 18-year-old Kenyan prodigy Phanuel Koech (3:27.72) and Briton George Mills (3:28.36) in the extraordinarily fast race at the Paris Diamond League meeting.
Others who have broken 3:30 this year include defending world champion and Olympic silver medallist Josh Kerr (3:29.37), world indoor champion Ingebrigtsen (3:29.63 indoors in February), 2019 world champion Timothy Cheruiyot (3:29.75) and Australian teenager Cameron Myers (3:29.80), so none of them can be discounted.
Olympic champion Cole Hocker has yet to find his best form this year, squeezing into the US team for Tokyo by virtue of a third place at his national championships in August. Olympic bronze medallist Yared Nuguse, currently ranked No.1 in the world, will not compete in Tokyo after he was caught out in that hotly-contested US final.
Jonah Koech was the winner of that race, and also of the 1500m in Rabat early in the season. His Kenyan namesake Phanuel Koech won in London in July, defeating Kerr, while Portugal’s Isaac Nader won the Dream Mile in Oslo in June and has featured highly in many of the big races this year. All of these athletes have podium potential in Tokyo.
And what of Ingebrigtsen? The Norwegian admitted last week he was still fighting to be fit to compete.
“I’m definitely racing against the clock to make the world championships, but if I’m on the start line, of course, I’m going to try to win and believe that I can win,” he said.
An irresistible frontrunner, Ingebrigtsen’s presence or absence is likely to make a material difference to the early pace of the final, and which other contenders that might suit. Both athletes and fans will need to be ready for anything.
Nicole Jeffery for World Athletics
AloJapan.com