Jakob Ingebrigtsen powers into 1500m final after 'disrespectful' act called out at Olympics
Ingebrigtsen and his Great Britain rival are tipped to battle it out in a fierce 1500m final.
Norway's athletics star Jakob Ingebrigtsen has been accused of disrespecting his rivals after powering into Wednesday morning's (AEST) 1500m final at the Paris Olympics. Ingebrigtsen toyed with his fellow competitors in both the heats and the semi-finals, beating fierce rival and reigning world champion Josh Kerr in both races to set up a mouthwatering showdown against the Great Britain ace in the Paris final.
The defending Olympic gold medallist's mind games began in the heats when he was pictured casually standing upright before the gun went off to start the race. All of his fellow competitors were crouched down in racing position ready to try and get the jump on the field but the Norwegian didn't seem to have a care in the world.
Ingebrigtsen let his rivals get at least 20m ahead of him over the first hundred metres and continued to sit at the back of the pack for the majority of the race. Then with about 300m of the race left, the Tokyo 2020 gold medallist finally decided to click into gear and gradually swallowed up his rivals one by one as he stormed into the lead. Ingebrigtsen passed Kerr and looked over his shoulder to make sure he had a top-six place wrapped up, before casually strolling across the finish line in first.
“He’s so relaxed. He lets the field charge off here. He’s way down. Maybe he’s got off a bit too relaxed,” one commentator for Eurosport said as he analysed Ingebrigtsen's run for the broadcaster. Another athletics analyst took to TikTok to accuse the Norwegian of "disrespect", claiming the 23-year-old didn't seem to care if he got his tactics all wrong, because he knew he'd win the race anyway.
“Jakob Ingebrigtsen just did the most disrespectful thing to his opponents in the 1500m heats,” the analyst said. “He doesn’t even look like he’s trying. There’s no reason to do this other than the fact that he can.. he’s actually tactically worse than everyone else. He gets himself into bad positions. He just doesn’t care because he knows he’s going to get through.”
Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Josh Kerr to lock horns in 1500m final
Ingebrigtsen wasn't quite so nonchalant in the semi-final but still managed to land another psychological blow on Great Britain's reigning world champion, Kerr. The rivalry between the pair is one of the fiercest in athletics and Ingebrigtsen could be seen eyeballing the Brit as he twice stared him down in the final stretch, before edging Kerr by just 0.08sec to finish first and book his place in the final.
The Norwegian took the win in 3:32.38 and has the fourth-fastest time in history after clocking a personal best of 3:26.73 last month. None of his current competitors have ever run as fast in the event. But Kerr has told fans to expect one of the most hotly contested finals in history when they square off again in Wednesday morning's final (Wednesday 4:50am AEST).
RELATED:
Novak Djokovic drops bombshell news after Carlos Alcaraz left in tears
Gold medallist spotted sleeping in park amid shocking Olympics fallout
Football Australia boss responds amid ugly new claims about Sam Kerr
“They should be expecting one of the most vicious and hardest 1500 metres this sport has seen for a very long time,” Kerr said. “I am ready to go after it. I think we all are. There has been a lot of talk and words over the last 12 months, even two years. I am looking to settle that on Tuesday and give it my best performance. I will show that in the final.”
with agencies
