When Jake Wightman sat on the bus to the 1500m heats at the World Athletics Championships on Sunday, he told himself that if he failed to make it through he was done. He was 31. His body was breaking down so often that he felt he had post‑traumatic stress disorder. And he feared his best days were behind him. Yet, just three days later, what had seemed like a final hurrah became a glorious resurrection.
What a fighter. What an athlete. What a 1500m final. Most expected this to be a shootout between Britain’s defending champion, Josh Kerr, and the young Dutch star Niels Laros. Instead the script was flipped on its head and ripped into pieces. Twice.
A slow burner of a race finally ignited with 200m remaining when Wightman charged from third to first, leaving others flailing. Around the final bend Laros was beaten. Kerr was long gone too, and was hobbling badly after injuring a calf.
Wightman smelt gold. But then Isaac Nader from Portugal, unheralded and unfancied, swooped from the gods in the final metres.
“I ran my perfect race,” Wightman said after winning a brilliant silver medal in 3min 34.12sec – just 0.02sec behind Nader, with the Kenyan Reynold Cheruiyot claiming bronze. “I thought I’d written my own perfect fairytale. But there’s nothing else I could have done. He [Nader] ran an unbelievable race.”
Most people had thought Wightman was finished as a top athlete after a slew of injuries that began when he fractured a foot while doing plyometrics in 2023. A year later he sustained a calf tear and then a hamstring tear that ruled him out of the Paris Olympics. In February a torn meniscus led to surgery and a dramatic ending to the 15-year coaching relationship with his father, Geoff.
“You can’t just keep hammering the same stuff and expect the same outcome,” Wightman said.
“I was just getting these big injuries. I wasn’t getting niggles. I was getting two-month injuries every single time, and it wasn’t the same recurring one.
“I probably got a bit of PTSD from what’s happened with these injuries. Even before this I felt like I was getting ill. I had a couple of little problems and thought: ‘My season’s not going to carry on here, this is going to be the end.’”
Quick Guide
Furlani leaps to long jump gold and Cherotich wins steeplechase
Show
A 20-year-old Italian long jumper and a 21-year-old Kenyan steeplechaser added their names to the list of athletics world champions with sensational performances on Wednesday.
Mattia Furlani (pictured) underlined his status as the coming man in long jump when he won gold with a personal best leap of 8.39m on Wednesday, as big favourite Miltiadis Tentoglou failed to make it to the second round of jumps. Furlani, the world indoor champion, became the youngest and first Italian winner of the title with his fifth attempt.
Jamaica’s Tajay Gayle, world champion six years ago and bronze medallist in 2023, took silver with 8.34m, ahead of China’s Shi Yuhao (8.33m).
“This is a most special evening. I worked so hard and put so much determination into getting a medal,” Furlani said. “At the beginning I had a small problem with my run-up, but as usual I tried to stay calm and save the best for last. Now I am here with this gold medal. This is a perfect year for me.“
Faith Cherotich overhauled defending champion Winfred Yavi on a dramatic last lap of the women’s 3,000m. Cherotich added gold to her bronze medals from Budapest two years ago and last year’s Paris Olympics.
Cherotich nailed the final water jump, which Bahrain’s Yavi stumbled over, in the final half lap and stormed clear in the straight to victory. Her winning time of 8:51.59sec was a championship record despite the oppressive humidity at the National Stadium.
“I am so happy to win today. Improving from bronze to gold is amazing to me,” Cherotich said. “I believed in my kick. In the last 400, I said: ’This is my moment.’ Olympic champion Yavi took silver in 8:56.46, while bronze went to Ethiopia’s 20-year-old Sembo Almayew in a personal best of 8:58.86. Reuters
Photograph: Andrzej Iwańczuk/Shutterstock Editorial
Thank you for your feedback.
Wightman knew he needed to take drastic action, so he moved to Manchester where he is now coached by John Hartigan, the father of his fiancee, Georgie. His training has been revolutionised, too. He runs fewer miles a week, brought in more cross training, and cut back on the number of intense sessions. Suddenly something that was broken has been fixed again.
There were still mental battles to overcome in Tokyo, however, with Wightman wondering whether he could ever return to the form that made him world champion in 2022.
Josh Kerr hobbles over the line 37 seconds back after injuring his calf with about 600m to go. Photograph: Martin Rickett/PA
“I can’t put into words how much I battled my own head this year,” he said. “The self-doubt has been immense. I’m 31 years old. I’ve got all these feelings about am I going to be able to do any more in my career?
“I’ve reached the point where a lot of people have retired. Am I going to be able to come out and still get my best? Literally, it was only these heats and semi-finals that I really felt like, this is me again.”
Before the final, Georgie even visited a shrine in Tokyo to get Wightman a good‑luck cat figurine – which her father then gave him in the warm‑up. Wightman said: “I was like, ‘This is heading towards something special.’” It certainly was that – and more – as Tokyo witnessed a 1500m final for the ages.
And while his relationship with his father has been complicated, it was Geoff who messaged him beforehand to tell him he had a real chance of glory. For good measure, Geoff also tried to warn him of the lurking dangers when he was commentating on the track in the National Stadium.
As Wightman spoke to reporters afterwards, his father suddenly appeared. “I was giving you the scoop that he was coming!” he told his son.
“Do you think it’s the genes?” Geoff then asked him, before saying he had thought for a brief moment that history was about to repeat itself. “I thought: ‘This is it; first man ever to regain the title, the only one of the current era to win two,’” Geoff said. “But then I saw the speed that Nader was coming, and you think: ‘There’s nothing you can do.’ You couldn’t have done any more.”
Timothy Cheruiyot of Kenya (bronze), Isaac Nader of Portugal (gold) and Jake Wightman (silver) celebrate (left to right). Photograph: Andrzej Iwańczuk/NurPhoto/Shutterstock
That much was certainly true. Wightman ran the last 100m in 12.9sec; Nader in 12.3sec. But having had so many painful ups and downs in the past three years, Wightman could see the broader picture.
“I could have very easily not even made a British team again,” he said. “I could have not got near a podium. Even on the bus on the way over, I was like: ‘This could go so many different ways.’
“The way I was performing in August I never expected to come away with anything from these championships. But I just feel like I’m a racer and I know that when I go out there I’ll do everything I can to leave it on the track.”
Wightman did that all right, and more, on a sweaty, messy and thrilling night in Tokyo.
Discover more from 6up.net
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
