BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Jakob Ingebrigtsen said Saturday he's withdrawing from the 1,500-meter race at track's Ultimate Championship, depriving the sport of a marquee showdown in wake of the Norwegian's most recent round of bickering with top rivals Cole Hocker and Josh Kerr.
Ingebrigtsen made the announcement less than 24 hours after beating Hocker in the 5,000 meters to take the $150,000 top prize on the championship's opening night. Ingebrigtsen is
coming back from Achilles surgery in February and said running two races in the span of three days was simply too much.
“I would love for it to be a little bit different and be a little bit sharper in terms of recovery," he said on social media. "But coming from a very difficult last two years with injury problems and Achilles surgery, I'm forced to be more sensible than I would like to be.”
Ingebrigtsen and Kerr have been arguing among themselves for three years now, with Hocker recently getting into the mix. Every time they step onto the track to let their running do the talking, it’s unpredictable, with five different winners in the last five major championships (Ingebrigtsen, Jake Wightman, Kerr, Hocker and Isaac Nader.)
The next chapter takes place Sunday, but it will go on without Ingebrigtsen, who said he’s thinking about 2027.
“Fitness cannot be faked,” he said. “It’s about doing the work every day, showing off the training. Just looking back, a short time ago, it’s unbelievable we’ve been able to get this far in 2026.”
Here’s a brief timeline of track’s best soap opera, starting with the most recent development.
Until this year, Hocker had mostly been a silent bystander in a feud between Ingebrigtsen and Kerr. That tension was the entire story heading into Paris, and when Hocker barged through on the inside to win the gold medal, everyone was stunned.
But Ingebrigtsen brought Hocker into the fray two weeks ago after a Diamond League race in Brussels, when he confronted him. He called the Americans “cowards,” accusing them of playing games with the pacemakers for the 1,500 meters, which resulted in a slower, more “tactical” race than Ingebrigtsen expected. Neither runner finished on the podium.
After the 5,000 on Friday, Ingebrigtsen called it a simple matter of having "an open dialogue and communication on things we feel are right or wrong.”
“And if opening your mouth is creating a war or creating a fight, then that’s not my problem," he said.
Hocker has been trying to move on. Asked if he respected Ingebrigtsen or thought Ingebrigtsen respected him, Hocker said, “I’m not going to try to guess what he thinks of us.”
“I think everyone on the start line for a global final deserves a lot of respect and you can have opinions on the race and how it goes,” Hocker said.
The disagreement with Hocker came just as Ingebrigtsen’s latest flare-up involving Kerr seemed to be dying down.
Kerr passed on the 1,500 this season, which is the distance for most four-lap races in elite track, to pursue the world record in the slightly longer and more iconic mile.
Kerr ran 3 minutes, 42.66 seconds at a Diamond League meet in London in July to break Hicham El Guerrouj’s 27-year-old record. He also won the mile at the Commonwealth Games. He did not, however, compete at European Championships, which staged a 1,500-meter race. Ingebrigtsen was not pleased.
“I definitely think it is ruining the sport if we are not participating,” he said. “We all have different plans, but I could never see myself in that position.”
Kerr received a special invitation to run the 1,500 this week and extended his season by six weeks to accept.
“Always under criticism,” Kerr said in an interview last week. “What’s been fun for me about this process is this is still an individual sport. It’s not a sport where we’re forced into certain racing strategies. Every person’s different and every athlete’s different in the way they approach the season.”
Funny enough, the history between Ingebrigtsen and Kerr began on the very track they're running on this week.
At the 2023 world championships in Budapest, much was made of Ingebrigtsen’s gesturing to the fans as he hit the homestretch in a semifinal and then, almost casually, cruising past Kerr to finish first.
Kerr got the last laugh three nights later when he won the final. Ingebrigtsen blamed it on being sick, which annoyed some people who felt that took away from Kerr’s breakthrough victory.
In the ensuing year, the two bickered back and forth about a handful of issues, but mostly over what Kerr said was Ingebrigtsen’s need to use pacemakers, which are not allowed in major championships.
Ingebrigtsen insisted that wasn’t the case and that, in most races, he was the pacemaker. Kerr suggested Ingebrigtsen’s Olympic title at 1,500 meters in 2021 came courtesy of Timothy Cheruiyot, who was racing to win but served as a pacemaker of sorts, holding the lead for much of the race before dropping to second.
Ingebrigtsen's brother, Henrik, marveled at Jakob’s ability to bounce back and get to the point where he could win the 5,000 against the best field of the year.
Yet, as Jakob left the track Friday, it was already apparent he was no sure bet to show up for the 1,500, where he hasn’t won a major outdoor championship since the Tokyo Games.
“He’s nowhere near the shape of Josh Kerr and those other guys, they’re in the shape of their life,” Henrik said. “It would be really fun to see how close he could get with his limited shape.”
___
See AP’s full sports coverage here
