Jakob Ingebrigtsen Completes “Double-Double” by Winning 2022 European 1500 Title

Jakob Ingebrigtsen is golden again.

After claiming 5,000-meter gold at the European Athletics Championships in Munich on Tuesday, Ingebrigtsen doubled back and won Thursday’s 1500-meter final in wire-to-wire fashion, setting a championship record of 3:32.76 in the process. Jake Heyward, who just missed out on making the British team for the World Championships and finished 5th at the Commonwealth Games for Wales, took silver in 3:34.44, running down Spain’s Mario Garcia Romo, who held on for bronze in 3:34.88.

The victory for Ingebrigtsen improves his record to 4-0 in European outdoor finals and means he has completed the “double-double” by winning the 1500 and 5000 at both the 2018 and 2022 European championships. All at the age of 21.

As is his custom, Ingebrigtsen started slowly off the line, but worked his way into the lead on the home straight of the first lap and would stay there the rest of the way. He hit 400 in a quick 56.34, 800 in 1:54.11 (57.77 lap), and 1200 in 2:51.68 (57.57 lap), at which point a pack of four men — Garcia Romo, Heyward, Italy’s Pietro Arese, and Poland’s Michal Rozmys were in close pursuit. Ingebrigtsen opened a small gap on the back straight before blasting away over the final 200, using a 55.24 last lap (27.14 last 100) to crush all opposition.

The only drama in the final half-lap centered around silver and bronze as Heyward passed Garcia Romo in the home straight to take silver and Garcia Romo held off the 22-year-old Arese — who ran a 2+ second pb of 3:35.00 — to earn bronze to go with the Euro U23 silver he won last year.

posted Friday August 19th
by Jonathan Gault