American Miller tops the Norwegians, plus Cole Hawker, Nils Laros and Josh Kerr, while Beatrice Chebet, Letsile Tebogo and Grant Holloway also impress in the Weltklasse.
The final chapter of an epic season in the men’s 1500m saw Jared Nuguse make his mark as he cruised past Jakob Ingebrigtsen on a rainy night in Zurich to win the much-anticipated showdown in 3:29.21.
With Olympic champion Cole Hawker third, Nils Laros fourth and world champion Josh Kerr fifth, it would be natural to assume this was the best race of Nuguese’s career.
“Not really,” he said. “I think my Olympic bronze medal in Paris was better.”
Paris is certainly the most important race in 2024, but on Thursday (September 5) the Weltklasse is still one of the premier meetings in the world and the metric mile was present with all the main contenders.
One of the beauties of this year’s event is that it’s also been pretty unpredictable, with the top contenders all evenly matched. Hawker was not the favorite to win in Paris, but he raced to glory in style in the French capital. No one really expected Nuguz to win in Zurich either, especially when he was beaten by Elliott Giles in the road kilometer in Dusseldorf four days earlier.
Giles was just the second pacesetter in Zurich as he took the opening two laps of Zahn Rudolph in 55.61 and 1:51.17. The pace didn’t drop in the third lap either, and Giles came out at the bell (2:46.3). At that point, Ingebrigtsen took it on Nuguse’s shoulder and then dropped two or three meters to Kerr, Hawker and Laros.
Jakob Ingebrigtsen (River)
In the final bend, Ingebrigtsen and Nuguse were clear, with the American sitting ominously on the Norwegian’s shoulder. In the home straight he paced and played a clear draw as Ingebrigtsen clocked second in 3:29.52 and Hawker produced his usual superb finish to take third in 3:30.46, Laros fourth in 3:31.23 and Kerr just behind a nervous fifth in 3:31.46.
“I felt really good,” Nuguse said. “The buzz going into it was ‘hang on for dear life.’ But I had to put myself in a position to win and then right behind Jacob where I could stay calm and composed in the last 200 meters.”
After breaking the 3000m world record in Silesia late last month, Ingebrigtsen went 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 mud with teary eyes.”
“It’s not an ideal position, but good enough (to compete) and I felt pretty strong. I could have easily 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 (for the trip to Zurich) I thought “this is probably not a good idea”.
Hawker said: “Everyone knows that this is a different race than the championship. But it shows just how competitive this top four really is. So it makes me even more proud that I had my best day at the Olympics.”
Jared Nugus (Getty)
Kerr came into the race feeling confident after training in Albuquerque, but he said: “Mentally it was very tiring. I don’t really have a week-to-week time trial kind of brain, so races like this are sometimes boring to me. I was in a good place (fitness-wise), but there wasn’t much left until the end. It’s been a long year. And I still got my favorite race of the year on Sunday (5:00 p.m.).th Ave Mile).
Off the track, there’s rarely a dull moment with today’s milers either, and fresh off his race in Zurich, Ingebrigtsen had some interesting comments on cross training that are sure to have the world’s top coaches and athletes talking.
After hearing that Hawker does a lot of cross-training to complement his running, and of course Hawker does it by being single, Ingebrigtsen said it’s “very strange” to do cycling, swimming (or presumably the elliptical) if you’re in shape. and are able to run without injury.
Ingebrigtsen says she only cross-trains when she can’t run, and even then it’s mostly just aqua jogging. “If someone thinks they’re good at running because they swim a lot, they don’t know what they’re doing,” he said bluntly.
“I supplement my running with some strength training and exercises, but you have to max out your running before you start doing all the other stuff.”
Elsewhere in Zurich, Beatrice Chebet set a meeting record and world lead in the women’s 5000m in 14:09.52. The Kenyan, who won the 5,000m and 10,000m at the Olympics, missed out on Gudaf Tsega’s world record of 14:00.21, but he was not disappointed. “I’m really happy with my time in this weather,” he said.
Grant Holloway (Getty)
Grant Holloway was also buzzing off the track in 12.99 (-0.3). Zurich has seen some great sprint hurdles performances and Holloway has now run more races under 13 seconds than anyone 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 performing like I’ve been here.”
Jasmine Camacho-Quinn was similarly impressive as the Puerto Rican won the women’s sprint hurdles in 12.36 (0.8).
Like Holloway, Letsile Tebogo now seems to have a Midas touch, with the Olympic 200m champion winning in 19.55 (0.4) on a damp, cool night here as Americans Kenny Bednarek, Erion Knighton and Fred Curley was followed by 19.57, 19.789 and 19. respectively.
Sha Curry Richardson (Getty)
American Sha Kari Richardson won the women’s 100m in 10.84 (0.1) to Olympic champion Julien Alfred’s 10.88, with Great Britain’s Dina Usher-Smith a good third in 10.89.
Mary Mora of Kenya, running her world best 600m four days ago, won the women’s 800m in 1:57.08 ahead of fast finisher Georgia Bell, who weaved her way through the 13-strong field to finish second in Addison in 1:57.94. American Wiley was third and Gemma Rickey was fourth.
It was Bell’s first time in the Weltklasse. For fellow Brits Scott Lincoln and Jacob Fincham-Dukes, they were similarly meeting for the first time.
It was actually Lincoln’s first diamond league outside of London and the shot putter exceeded expectations with a top-class fifth place finish of 20.82m, beaten by world record holder Ryan Crouser with 22.66m.
For Fincham-Dukes, it was her first diamond league of any kind as the British long jumper, who narrowly missed out on a European medal in Rome in June, returned to Europe from her home United States to finish fourth with a best of 7.92m. Jamaican Wayne Pinnock won with 8.18m, Greek Olympic champion Miltos Tentoglu was runner-up with 8.02m, and Swiss favorite Simon Ehammer with 7.98m.
The previous night’s effort in their sprint shootout probably didn’t help Mondo Duplantis and Carsten Warholm in their special events at the Diamond League proper. Warholm retreated with a smile, but still appeared on the track and graciously gave interviews in a Swedish tracksuit; his “punishment” for losing to Duplantis by more than 100m.
READ MORE. Mondo Duplantis beats Karsten Warholm
As well as coming off the euphoria of the 100m, Duplantis had to deal with wet weather as he cleared 5.82m to beat Sam Kendricks on countback.
Yaroslava Mahuchich (River)
Similarly, high jump world record holder Jaroslava Mahuchych had to deal with wet weather at its worst early in the meet and cleared 1.96m.
Mahuchich also participated in the previous night’s sprint challenge, but only as a spectator. He insists that high jumpers can also sprint quite well, but admits that he is unlikely to be involved in a similar event in the future, far from flying.
Full results here
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