American miler out-sprints Norwegian plus Cole Hocker, Niels Laros and Josh Kerr while Beatrice Chebet, Letsile Tebogo and Grant Holloway also impress at the Weltklasse
The latest chapter in an epic season for the men’s 1500m saw Yared Nuguse make his mark as he glided past Jakob Ingebrigtsen on a rainswept night in Zurich to win a much-anticipated showdown in 3:29.21.
Nuguse
With Olympic champion Cole Hocker third, Niels Laros fourth and world champion Josh Kerr fifth, it would be natural to assume that this was the finest race of Nuguse’s career.
“Not really,” he said. “I think my Olympic bronze medal in Paris was better.”
Paris is certainly the race that mattered most in 2024, but the Weltklasse on Thursday (Sept 5) is still one of the premier meetings in the world and the metric mile had all the major contenders present.
One of the beauties of the event this year is that it has been fairly unpredictable, too, with the leading contenders all evenly matched. Hocker wasn’t the favourite to win in Paris but he sprinted to glory in style in the French capital. No one really expected Nuguse to win in Zurich either, especially as he was beaten by Elliot Giles in a road mile four days earlier in Düsseldorf.
Giles was merely the second pacemaker in Zurich as he took over from Zan Rudolf’s 55.61 and 1:51.17 opening two laps. On the third lap the pace didn’t drop either and Giles stepped out at the bell (2:46.3). At that point, Ingebrigtsen took it up with Nuguse on his shoulder and then a gap of two or three metres to Kerr, Hocker, and Laros.
Jakob Ingebrigtsen (Getty)
Around the final bend, Ingebrigtsen and Nuguse were clear, with the American sitting ominously on the Norwegian’s shoulder. Into the home straight he kicked past and drew clear as Ingebrigtsen clocked 3:29.52 for second, with Hocker producing his usual nifty finish to take third in 3:30.46, Laros fourth in 3:31.23 and Kerr a slightly jaded fifth in 3:31.46.
“I felt really good,” said Nuguse. “The hype coming into it was ‘hang in for dear life’. But I had to put myself in a position to win and then right behind Jakob where I could stay calm and relaxed coming into that last 200m.”
After smashing the world 3000m record in Silesia late last month, Ingebrigtsen came down with an infection. “When I woke up this morning, it was better than yesterday,” he said, “but when I looked at myself in the mirror, I looked like shit with watery eyes.
“It’s not an ideal position to be in but good enough (to race) and I felt pretty strong. I easily could have hit the wall and run 3:32-33 but I was stronger than expected. When I woke up yesterday and put on my compression socks (to travel to Zurich), I thought, ‘This is probably not a good idea’.”
Hocker said: “Everyone knows this is a different race to a championship. But it shows how competitive this top four is. So it makes me more proud that I executed my best day at the Olympics.”
Yared Nuguse (Getty)
Kerr came into the race confident after a training spell in Albuquerque but he said: “Mentally, it was very tiring. I don’t really have a ‘week after week time trial’ kind of brain so these sort of races are kind of boring for me sometimes. I was in a good place (fitness-wise), but I didn’t have much left towards the end. It’s been a long year. And I’ve still got my favourite race of the year on Sunday (5th Ave Mile).”
Off the track, there are rarely dull moments with today’s crop of milers either, and after his race in Zurich,, the refreshingly straight-talking Ingebrigtsen made some interesting comments about cross-training that will doubtless be mulled over by the world’s leading coaches and athletes.
On hearing that Hocker does a lot of cross-training to complement his running—and of course Hocker is far from alone in doing this—Ingebrigtsen suggested it is “very strange” to do cycling, swimming (or presumably elliptical machine) workouts if you are fit and able to run without injury.
Ingebrigtsen says he only cross-trains when he cannot run and, even then, mainly just does aqua jogging. “If anybody thinks they are good at running because they do a lot of swimming, then they don’t know what they’re doing,” he said bluntly.
“I complement my running with some strength training and drills but you have to maximise your running first before you start to do all the other things.”
Elsewhere in Zurich, Beatrice Chebet ran a meeting record and world lead in the women’s 5000m with 14:09.52. The Kenyan, who won the 5000m and 10,000m at the Olympics, missed Gudaf Tsegay’s world record of 14:00.21 but she wasn’t disappointed. “In this weather,, I’m really happy with my time,” she beamed.
Grant Holloway (Getty)
Grant Holloway emerged from the track also buzzing after clocking 12.99 (-0.3). Zurich has a history of witnessing terrific sprint hurdles performances and Holloway has now run more sub-13sec races than anyone else with 12 races inside the barrier.
“This season has been remarkable for me,” he said. “As for the world record, I’m sure it will come one day as long as I stay consistent and keep having performances like I did here.”
Similarly impressive was Jasmine Camacho-Quinn as the Puerto Rico athlete won the women’s sprint hurdles in 12.36 (0.8).
Like Holloway, Letsile Tebogo seems to have the Midas touch right now and the Olympic 200m champion scorched to a 19.55 (0.4) victory here on a wet, cool night as Americans Kenny Bednarek, Erriyon Knighton and Fred Kerley followed in 19.57, 19.79 and 19.81 respectively.
Sha’Carri Richardson (Getty)
Sha’Carri Richardson of the United States won the women’s 100m in 10.84 (0.1) from Olympic champion Julien Alfred’s 10.88 with Britain’s Dina Asher-Smith a fine third in 10.89.
Fresh from her world 600m best four days earlier, Mary Moraa of Kenya won the women’s 800m in 1:57.08 ahead of a fast-finishing Georgia Bell, who weaved her way through a 13-strong field to take second in 1:57.94 as Addison Wiley of the United States was third and Jemma Reekie a fighting fourth.
It was Bell’s first time at the Weltklasse. For fellow Brits Scott Lincoln and Jacob Fincham-Dukes they were similarly experiencing the meeting for the first time.
This was in fact Lincoln’s first Diamond League outside of London and the shot putter exceeded expectations by placing fifth with 20.82m in a high-quality competition won by world record-holder Ryan Crouser with 22.66m.
For Fincham-Dukes it was his first Diamond League of any kind as the British long jumper – who narrowly missed a European medal in Rome in June – returned to Europe from his home in the United States to finish fourth with a best of 7.92m as Wayne Pinnock of Jamaica won with 8.18m as Greece’s Olympic champion Miltos Tentoglou was runner-up with 8.02m and Swiss favourite Simon Ehammer third with 7.98m.
The previous night’s exertions in their sprint shoot-out probably didn’t help Mondo Duplantis and Karsten Warholm with their speciality events in the Diamond League itself. Warholm withdrew with a niggle but still appeared on the track and graciously did interviews dressed in Swedish kit – his ‘punishment’ for losing to Duplantis over 100m.
As well as coming down from the euphoria of the 100m sprint event, Duplantis had to deal with the wet weather as he cleared 5.82m to beat Sam Kendricks on countback.
Yaroslava Mahuchikh (Getty)
Similarly, world high jump record-holder Yaroslava Mahuchikh had to handle the wet weather when it was at its worst early in the meeting and she cleared 1.96m to take the win.
Mahuchikh was also involved in the previous night’s sprint challenge but only as a spectator. She claims high jumpers can sprint pretty well, too, but admits she is unlikely to be drawn into a similar event away from the high jump in future.
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