Jakob Ingebrigtsen seals 1500m gold as promise becomes reality

Track and field’s most fascinating science experiment has ended in an Olympic 1500m gold medal for Jakob Ingebrigtsen, who has been training as a professional since he was eight. The 20-year-old has long been tipped for greatness after becoming the youngest man to break the four-minute mile at 16. On a muggy Tokyo night the Norwegian, who has been coached by his father, Gjert, since primary school, emphatically confirmed it.

“I feel like I have wanted this my whole life,” he said after powering to gold in an Olympic record of 3min 28.32sec. He had too. But as Ingebrigtsen sped away Britain’s Josh Kerr bravely hung on to finish in bronze, with the Kenyan Timothy Cheriyiot claiming silver.

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It was a heck of a run from the 23-year-old. Kerr’s time of 3:29.05 was quicker than Seb Coe, Steve Cram and Steve Ovett and he proved to be a heck of a talker too.

“I had this weird confidence in myself,” he said. “Some may call it cockiness. I call it confidence. If you put the effort in and the work in, and you’re surrounded by a team like myself, you can’t not feel confident.”

Kerr, who left his home in Edinburgh to go to university in the US at the age of 17, said: “My US visa says that I’m an entertainer. I just have to live up to that.

“It’s the first championships I have raced in contact lenses and normally I can’t see anything – I have had some mistakes in the past and I have been able to watch quite a lot so it has been fun. Hard but fun.”

Two other Britons, Jake Heyward and Jake Wightman were ninth and tenth, respectively.

But this was all about Ingebrigtsen. The family have long been famous in Norway, and not only because they have been the subject of a popular reality TV show, Team Ingebrigtsen. One brother, Henrik, finished fifth over 1500m at the London 2012 Games, while another, Filip, won bronze at the same distance at the London 2017 world championships.

Jakob, who said he had benefited from his father’s mistakes with the older brothers, is already in a different league. Asked whether he wanted to go down in history and break the world record, Ingebrigtsen gave just a one word reply: “Yes.”

He refused to tell his father his race tactics, but they were pretty much perfect. He took the lead on the first lap and pushed hard, determined to take the pace out of the fast-finishers Kerr, Jake Wightman and Cole Hocker. Then he let Cheruiyot take over and wind it up further before taking over with 150m to go.

The double Olympic medallist Nick Willis, who was knocked out at the semi-finals, called it the “greatest 1500m ever”. It was hard to argue.

There was a shock in the men’s javelin as Neeraj Chopra threw 87.58metres to win Indian’s first track and field Olympic gold medal. The German favourite, Johannes Vetter, finished ninth.

Chopra was congratulated by the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, who said: “Your javelin gold breaks barriers and creates history. Your feat will inspire our youth. India is elated! Heartiest congratulations!”