We reveal how a British runner’s support team helped take him from the depths of despair to the 1500m world title.
It was a school reunion to remember in September. Andy Kay had gone to collect his daughter, but he was sure he had arrived early. There was something he wanted to watch while he waited in the car.
Kay is a firefighter, but also a strength and conditioning specialist who works with some of the best athletes in the world, including Jake Wightman. The latter was preparing to compete in the men’s 1,500m final at the World Championships in Tokyo, while the former had his iPad ready. He did not want to miss a step.
That the 2022 world champion was on the starting line at all was testament to the tireless team effort of his support group, including his fiancee Georgie Hartigan, father-in-law-to-be and now coach John, physio Alex O’Gorman and Kay, who helped bring him back together after the darkest days of Whiteman’s long career.
Having suffered multiple injuries since standing on top of the middle-distance world in Eugene three years ago, from a broken foot that ruled him out of defending his title in 2023 to a hamstring problem that pulled him out of the Olympic mat at the last minute in 2024, he’s no stranger to the rehab process. But this time it felt different.
In February of this year, he underwent knee meniscus surgery. At every turn, and every time he was on the verge of returning to racing, Whiteman’s body failed him. The setbacks began to take a heavy toll.
“Jake doesn’t really cut corners. He’s not a negative athlete,” Kay says. “He’s the most motivated, positive, optimistic person I’ve ever met. So to see him so frankly against it, doubting himself, was a shock.
“For the first time that I can remember, there were a lot of points where he was very sensitive. Every pain, every little jolt, every feeling of discomfort was a wake-up call. I think a big part of the process, especially towards the end, was getting him out there and trusting his body, trusting the process because, rightfully so, he knew he was going to get hurt again and work.”
Whiteman agrees. “There were so many doubts, especially in the last year,” he says.
It wasn’t time to call it a day, though, and the backroom team had buckled down. Changes have also been made. Martin Wightman made the difficult decision to stop being coached by his father Geoff, while even the flow of information from the team changed, with agreed-upon progress mainly being relayed through Georgie. With the question of whether this could be the 31-year-old’s last chance hanging in the air, they got down to business.
“We went right back to the drawing board,” Kay says. “Jake is a very, very smart athlete and he manages his team and the people around him really well. What he wanted was to get the right people together and then go away and have just one instruction, one contact a week, and we all agreed to that.”
Every member was fully invested.
“They’re more friends than partners,” Whiteman says. “I’ve been working with Andy since 2017 and I don’t talk to him like I’m just talking to a coach. It’s the same with everyone on our team, and hopefully that means they care about me a little bit more than I care about them. That means that even though there were points where it looked like everyone might have a happy ending.
Kay certainly admits that she’s used different skills this time around.
“(Early in my career) I was doing one-on-one training and working with the general population from the beginning,” she says. “It’s much more about someone paying you to motivate them, hold them accountable and show them that anything is possible.
“In athletics, in particular, I don’t often have to deal with it. Athletes just do it. That’s their job. Someone who runs 80 miles a week doesn’t need me to convince them they need to exercise. But there were definitely more soft skills: being a friend and dealing with a situation. when something is better then you go back to it and it’s gone again or something else is gone and you’re right back to square one and it’s devastating, I can’t relate to being a world champion but I understand that it’s bad and I know what it does so it’s definitely affected another part of the relationship.
“Especially with someone as positive as Jake, sometimes you just need someone to sit down with you and say, ‘What’s up?’ “Yes, this is a shame. Let’s not drag, but it’ll be fine, and so,” and that goes a long way.
Immersion in detail became the order of the day as inter-team phone calls, zoom conversations and meetings regularly increased behind the scenes. Communication was key.
“It was very hands-on and a lot more labor-intensive than before,” Kay says. “We put everything under a microscope and planned each week individually, which you don’t often do. Everyone had their say, we would all contribute and tweak and change (as we went along).
“It was very proactive and reactive. Any questions were changed within 24 hours and a new plan was created. It was real micro-scale stuff, and I think for Jake to come out, that was really important. We could track and measure every minute. It was actually a really good example of interdisciplinary team work.”
The “unsung hero” of it all, Kay says, was Georgie. It wasn’t that long ago that she was an elite athlete herself, but she found herself immersed in a new role.
“He managed a lot of data, directly helping his father, and he plans an awful lot,” Kay says. “We’ll call his team manager doing all this work that no one else sees, and for Jake you can see how much his support keeps him going as well. They are a really good team and a great couple.
“But the reality is that every ounce of work that was done was him. We were just planning things and telling him what to do, so that’s really a testament to his determination.”
The new approach and careful management began to work as Wightman regained his fitness, but that development actually raised another question.
“When you haven’t been injured, then it’s about. “You’re still good enough,” admits the European and Commonwealth medalist. “Every year it was these injuries that stopped me from showing it, but now it was just me. I was fit. Everyone had done their thing, so I just had to go out there and prove I could still do it, which was pretty daunting.”
The first big test came in the opening qualifying heat in Tokyo. a stage that proved to be chaotic as then world 1500m leader Azedin Habz and former Olympic champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen crashed out.
“I hadn’t had a championship race in three years and I hadn’t raced that well during the season,” Whiteman said. “I did the work so that it happened.
“The heat was stressful and then the semis and finals were nice because I was able to go out and do what I wanted to do. I had no pressure at all, so I was in a pretty free position. And that’s what I used to tell myself.
Wightman also looked very comfortable in the semi-finals, but most of the attention still fell on young Dutchmen Nils Laros and Josh Kerr. The reigning champion’s calf tear in the final soon put him out of contention and opened up the medal race. His fellow Brit stepped forward.
By the 200m mark, Whiteman had broken down and, until the final strides of Isaac Nader’s blistering finish, looked set to win his second world title. The crowd at Japan’s National Stadium roared, and thousands of miles away, so did Kei.
“I was screaming like a maniac in my car,” he says. “I was watching him break and as soon as he did, you could tell he was going to win a medal. And then I thought he was going for (gold). I was convinced.”
Nader eventually won the battle to hit the line first. Simply.
“For a second, I felt a little bad for Jake because he didn’t get the gold,” Kay adds. “But really, it was a huge, huge win. I was sitting in my car screaming and then, two minutes later, I had to put the iPad down, get myself together and go pick up my daughter. It was quite a strange afternoon. But I was so happy for her. If anyone deserves it, it’s really Jake. And you can see and hear it already. about my coaching career.”
There’s plenty of snow outside Wightman’s window as AW’s British Athlete of the Year chews the fat from training in Flagstaff, Arizona. He admits that getting back into winter training has been a “hurt”, but being able to run at this time of year rather than end up in rehab or training is sweeter. There’s another busy year with a potential bye to the European Championships and the Commonwealth Games to prepare for.
“Having the ball in my court for the next few years is what I’m going to do,” he says. “And it’s up to me how my body looks. I was stuck in a vicious cycle of those problems and I feel like I’m out of it. Hopefully that’s what I need to make sure I can get the most out of my body.”
