Running News Daily

After nearly three years away from the Diamond League spotlight, British middle-distance star Jake Heyward is finally preparing for a long-awaited return to elite competition as he lines up for the men’s 1500m at next month’s BAUHAUS-galan in Stockholm.

For Heyward, the announcement marks far more than just another race entry. It represents the latest chapter in a determined comeback journey after a frustrating spell dominated by long-term injury setbacks that stalled the momentum of one of Europe’s most gifted milers.

The Brit’s last appearance on the Diamond League circuit came back in Zurich in 2022 — the same season in which he produced some of the finest performances of his career. Since then, injuries forced him away from the biggest stages of global athletics, interrupting what had looked like a rapid rise toward world-class consistency.

Now, however, encouraging signs are beginning to emerge.

Earlier this month in California, Heyward clocked 3:34.18 over 1500m, a performance that hinted at growing sharpness and renewed confidence as he rebuilds his fitness ahead of a crucial summer campaign. While still short of his lifetime best of 3:31.08, the run suggested the European silver medallist is steadily rediscovering the rhythm that once placed him among the continent’s elite.

Heyward’s breakthrough season in 2022 remains one of the defining moments of his career. At the European Athletics Championships in Munich, he stormed to the 1500m silver medal behind Norway’s dominant Olympic champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen, showcasing both tactical maturity and finishing speed against one of the strongest fields in Europe.

That performance elevated Heyward into the upper tier of international middle-distance running and reinforced Britain’s rich tradition in the event. Many believed it was only the beginning.

Instead, the years that followed became a battle for recovery, patience, and persistence.

Returning to the Diamond League at BAUHAUS-galan now offers Heyward an opportunity to measure himself once again against world-class opposition and test how far his comeback has progressed. Stockholm’s historic meeting has long been known for producing fast middle-distance races, and the event could provide the perfect environment for the Brit to continue building momentum.

At 1500m level, where fractions of a second often separate contenders from champions, regaining race sharpness after an extended absence is never straightforward. Yet Heyward’s recent performances suggest the foundations are gradually falling back into place.

For British athletics fans, his return will be watched with both excitement and curiosity. A healthy Jake Heyward remains one of the most naturally talented milers of his generation — and if his body finally allows him sustained continuity, the next phase of his career could still hold enormous promise.

The world’s top middle-distance runners took to the streets of New York City on Sunday morning for the Fifth Avenue Mile, one of the final races of the summer racing season. For the second year in a row, two Scottish runners took the win, with Laura Muir winning the women’s race in a course record time of 4:14.8 and Jake Wightman winning the men’s race for the second consecutive year.

The Olympic 1,500m silver medallist, Muir, won the women’s race by three seconds over American Nikki Hiltz, becoming the fastest female in the 41-year history of the race. Eleanor Fulton of the U.S. finished third in 4:18.0.

Muir had the fastest seed time heading into the race and led the race from the gun to tape. The previous mile record was set by Jenny Simpsonin 2019 (4:16.2)

Moments later, the world 1,500m champion, Wightman, successfully defended his 2021 title in 3:50.0 ahead of his British compatriot Jake Heyward. Wightman has now won the Fifth Ave. Mile in three of the last four years. American Sam Prakel finished third in 3:51.0, ahead of Canada’s William Paulson, who was fourth in 3:51.3.

Muir and Wightman took wins today despite both competing and earning medals at the Diamond League Finals in Zurich on Thursday night.

Olympic 1500m champion enjoys emphatic win at Diamond League on Friday as Noah Lyles, Jasmine Camacho-Quinn and Joe Kovacs also take victories in the Swiss city.

There were plenty of surprises at the Athletissima meeting in Lausanne on Friday (Aug 26) with world champions Ryan Crouser, Grant Holloway, Tobi Amusan and Mutaz Essa Barshim among those suffering end-of-season defeats. But there was no doubt about the winner in the men’s 1500m as Jakob Ingebrigtsen stormed to victory in a world-leading mark of 3:29.05.

Using his predictable yet effective tactics of taking the lead shortly after the pacemaker went through 800m in 1:51, the Norwegian built a small lead at the bell and held his advantage over the final lap as Abel Kipsang of Kenya battled his way into second in 3:29.93 and Stewart McSweyn of Australia showed a welcome return to form with 3:30.18 in third.

Josh Kerr bounced back from his dismal Commonwealth Games experience by finishing fourth in 3:32.28 with fellow Brits Jake Heyward (3:34.99) and Matt Stonier (3:35.57) ninth and tenth. Commonwealth champion Olli Hoare, meanwhile, faded badly on the last lap to finish 12th.

“It was a good race,” said Ingebrigtsen. “I would have liked to have gone a little faster but considering I’ve had a lot of races, it was good. I’m now looking forward to the races at the end of the season and running even faster next year.

“All in all it’s been a good season but I’m ready to put in a lot of work this winter to win more races next summer. I don’t think we’re going to get any record times in Zurich (Diamond League final next month) but I think we will have a good competition there.”

Chilly conditions in Lausanne were not conducive to fast sprint times but Noah Lyles ran a quick 19.56 (1.3) despite a poor start. Mike Norman, who had led into the home straight, was runner-up in 19.76 as Britain’s Charlie Dobson, on his Diamond League debut, ran 20.34 in eighth from the inside lane.

The much-anticipated women’s 100m showdown turned into an anticlimax when firstly world champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce withdrew with a minor injury and then Elaine Thompson-Herah, the Olympic champion, false started. In their absence Aleia Hobbs won in 10.87 (0.0) from Shericka Jackson’s 10.88 and Marie-Josee Ta Lou’s 10.89.

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.

Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen will be heavily involved in the Munich 2022 European Athletics Championships, part of the wider multisport European Championships, as he defends the 1500m and 5000m titles he won as a 17-year-old at the Berlin 2018 European Athletics Championships. 

The Olympic 1500m champion and world 5000m champion will not, however, face the either of his brothers Filip and Henrik who are both injured nor the Brit who unexpectedly beat him to the world 1500m title in Eugene last month, Jake Wightman. 

The latter is concentrating on the 800m in Munich – the event he originally planned to do at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games until he was nudged back to the longer distance because of the number of friends and family who had bought tickets for the final last Saturday when he won bronze in a high quality final in 3:30.53. 

With a personal best of 1:44.18 from 2020, Wightman has a realistic chance of adding another European medal to the bronze he won over 1500m in Berlin four years ago – and his victory over 1000m at the Monaco Diamond League meeting on Wednesday night in 2:13.88, ninth fastest of all-time, will have done his confidence no harm at all. 

France’s Benjamin Robert has the fastest 2022 time of all entrants – the 1:43.75 he clocked in winning at the Paris Diamond League on 18 June in boisterous fashion, squeezing in between the two leaders with enough physicality to be disqualified before being reinstated on appeal. If things get physical in Munich, Robert is unlikely to come off second best. 

Tony van Diepen is also well acquainted with the hurly-burly of the track having been a part of the Dutch teams that won 4x400m silver at the Tokyo 2020 Games and mixed 4x400m silver at the World Championships in Oregon. 

Individually, van Diepen has won European indoor silver in 2021 and bronze in 2019 over 400m and has a best 800m time of 1:44.14 set this year in Paris after M. Robert had burst past him at the Stade Charlety. 

Robert’s compatriot Gabriel Tual, seventh in last year’s Olympic final, is third fastest on this year’s European list with 1:44.23, set in – you’ve guessed it – Paris. But the French team will be without the popular Pierre-Ambroise Bosse, the 2017 world champion, due to injury.

Poland’s Patryk Dobek has run 1:44.59 this year and even though he exited in the heats at the World Athletics Championships, he can also draw upon the experience of winning bronze at last year’s Olympics in Tokyo. 

Other medal prospects include Sweden’s Andreas Kramer (1:44.59), Ireland’s Mark English (1:44.76), fellow Brits Ben Pattison (1:44.60) and Kyle Langford (1:44.61), Spain's reigning world indoor champion Mariano Garcia (1:45.12) and the very experienced former two-time world medallist Amel Tuka from Bosnia and Herzegovina (1:46.15) whose lifetime best of 1:42.57 dates back to 2015.

Aside from Bosse, another notable absentee will be the three-time reigning champion Adam Kszczot from Poland who retired at the start of the year.

Ingebrigtsen's path to double gold is clearer although not without challenges

With Wightman elsewhere, Ingebrigtsen will surely feel happier about the prospect of his 1500m defence, but he will still face a field full of Spanish and British medal threats. 

Second on this year’s European list with 3:30.20, Spain’s Mario Garcia will be looking to give the Norwegian wonderboy another run for his money after finishing fourth - two places behind Ingebrigtsen - in Oregon. 

The Brits dominate the 2022 European list with six athletes in the top nine and despite the absence of Wightman and Olympic bronze medallist Josh Kerr, Jake Heyward (3:31.08), Neil Gourley (3:32.93) and Matt Stonier (3:32.50) form a trio with clear medal-winning ability.

But Ingebrigtsen, who ran 3:29.47 to take world silver, and ran an Olympic and European record of 3:28.32 at the Tokyo 2020 Games, should have enough to cover any challenge in both events. 

In the 5000m, it might be the athlete who appears second from last on the entry-list in terms of season's bests who could provide the biggest challenge to Ingebrigtsen. That athlete is Spain’s Mohammed Katir who won a bronze medal behind Ingebrigtsen in the 1500m at the World Athletics Championships in Oregon and will be focusing solely on the longer event in Munich.

Katir, 24, has a modest season's best of 13:43.61 from the Spanish Championships but he showed what he can do over the longer distance by running a national record of 12:50.79 in Rome last summer in the same race where Ingebrigtsen broke the European record with 12:48.65.

Another strong potential challenger is the experienced Spaniard Adel Mechaal, who was fifth in the Olympic 1500m final last year and set a 5000m personal best of 13:06.02 in Oslo in June. Mechaal didn't make it through to the final of the World Athletics Championships but that wasn't too surprising as he had only just recovered from an untimely bout of coronavirus which forced him to miss the 1500m.

In both the 5000m and 10,000m, watch out for Italy’s Yemaneberhan Crippa, 25, who has been a star performer in numerous European competitions, winning bronze at the 2019 European Cross Country Championships and the European 10,000m Cup in the same year. 

Crippa has the fastest time among the entrants based on season’s best performances in the 10,000m with 27:16.18 ahead of another showboating, talented figure in Jimmy Gressier of France – he of the famous faceplant as he won the 2018 European U23 cross country title. This didn’t stop him from walking through the line to win the same title the following year, demonstrating just how much time he had to spare. 

There weren’t quite the same histrionics at the SPAR European Cross Country Championships in Dublin last December but Gressier let his running do the talking and he came away with his first senior medal in a race where Ingebrigtsen ruled triumphant once again.

Gressier will be focusing solely on the 10,000m in Munich and the Frenchman is the second fastest performer this year with 27:24.51 which he set at the European 10,000m Cup on home soil in Pacé in May when he ran away from the field for the individual title.

Athletes took to the streets of New York City on Sunday morning for the 5th Avenue Mile, one of the final races of the summer racing season.

It was the two Scottish runners who took the win, with Jemma Reekie taking the women’s race in 4:21.6 and Jake Wightman winning the men’s race in 3:49.6.

The women’s race

Alicia Monson took the lead early in the women’s race, gapping the field by several metres in the first half. The pack eventually reeled her in, and with one minute to go, Reekie, Hiltz and Van Buskirk began making a push for the finish.

With only a few metres left in the race, Reekie took over the lead, and after finishing 4th in Tokyo and 4th in the Diamond League final, she finally got her win. Hiltz finished in second place in 4:23.0 and Shannon Osika came third in 4:23.3. After making a strong push for a podium spot, Van Buskirk crossed the line in fourth in 4:23.9. Monson ended up in sixth in 4:25.4. Canada’s Julie-Anne Staehli finished in 11th in 4:29.1.

The men’s race

Wightman was the winner in a hotly-contested men’s race, where there was plenty of jostling for the lead over the 20-block race. Australia’s Oliver Hoare led in the early stages, but the rest of the pack were right on his heels. At about the 800m mark, Matthew Centrowitz made an aggressive move and created a sizeable gap on the field, but was unable to hold onto the lead.

Wightman cranked the pace up in the final meters of the race to take the win, followed by Hoare and Jake Heyward, also from the U.K., both in 3:50.4. Canada’s Charles Philibert-Thiboutot finished ninth in 3:53.2, and Centrowitz ended up in 14th in 3:56.4.

The Olympic-bound Scot, who turned 27 on Sunday, will sign off his build-up in the historic Emsley Carr Mile at the Diamond League leg against a largely domestic field that also includes his 1500m rival at the Games, Jake Heyward. But despite two wins in four starts this summer, Wightman admits he’s hunting a fast time for the ideal pre-Games booster ahead of his medal tilt.

“It's weird running this because it could not go well,” he said. “And it would not be a nice way to go into Olympics. But I want to be able to try and run quick because I feel like the rounds in Tokyo, and especially a final, could potentially be quick. And I've not gone fast this year, really. So I want to try and make sure I get a race which prepares me for that.”

The European medalist will target Graham Williamson’s Scottish mile record of 3:50.64 that has stood for exactly 38 years to the very day.

Andy Butchart is slated to run the 3000m at the Grand Prix despite his Olympic place remaining in limbo just days before he is due to travel to Japan. Nicole Yeargin will get her Diamond League debut in the women’s 400m while Beth Dobbin takes on Rio 2016 gold medallist Elaine Thompson over 200m.

For Wightman and his Edinburgh club-mate Josh Kerr, there remains uncertainty too, with no confirmation still on the fate of world 1500m champion Timothy Cheriuyot, whose omission from the Kenyan team for Tokyo could yet be overturned. But whether or not the fastest man in the world this year is at the Games, opportunity knocks, Wightman insists.

“I don't think that the rest of us are that far behind or going to be discounted,” he said. “We could still be in there. Matt Centrowitz from 2016 is the one person that keeps me going. Thinking that anything can happen in an Olympic final. Because nobody would have said that Centro was going to win that race. If you have a perfect day, you can do anything.”

“Hopefully I get that,” he said. “Steve Cram let me know he has got the stadium record. So that's another incentive, to try and get that.

“I need to try and improve my mile time. I don't really getting the chance to run them too often. And obviously there's a lot of history in the event. So have a time that you can say is sub-3.50 to me is a lot bigger deal than obviously running four minutes, which I did a while ago.”

World Championships semi-finalist Alex Bell is one of 30 British athletes who have been offered funding from London Marathon Events (LME) for the 2020 season as part of LME’s extensive and longstanding support of British endurance running.

Bell, who reached the semi-finals of the 800m in Doha last year, was one of eight athletes on last year’s inaugural LME funding programme who represented Great Britain at the 2019 World Championships.

Three others – Marc Scott, Ben Connor and Zak Seddon - continue on the LME programme for 2020 while another four – Charlotte Purdue, Steph Twell, Aimee Pratt and Neil Gourley – have progressed from LME funding to British Athletics’ Olympic Podium Potential Funding after hugely successful performances in 2019.

The athlete programme is part of a larger £350,000 ($453,000US) funding commitment from LME to British endurance running that includes support of the World Class Performance Programme (WCPP) and training camps for British endurance athletes.

Bell said: "I am extremely grateful to receive another year of help from London Marathon Events. I had a memorable year on the track last year reaching the World Championships semi-finals and now I have the Tokyo Olympic Games as my big motivation for 2020. This funding will be crucial to help and support me in a year that could be the biggest of my career to date."

LME has worked with British Athletics to select the nominated individual athletes and the funding is designed to provide a bridge for endurance runners to the WCPP and to improve the standard of British endurance running across all distances.

In addition to the 15 athletes who are continuing on the funding programme, 15 new names have been added to the list including Rosie Clarke (third photo) and Elizabeth Bird, who both ran the 3000m steeplechase at last year’s World Championships, Piers Copeland, 1500m silver medallist at the 2019 Under-23 European Championships, and Stephanie Davis, who last year ran the ninth fastest marathon time in history by a British woman.

The athletes were shortlisted by a panel of British Athletics and London Marathon Events endurance experts and range from middle-distance runners to marathon specialists. No athlete currently funded through the British Athletics WCPP is eligible to receive London Marathon Events individual funding.

Hugh Brasher, Event Director of London Marathon Events, said: “We are passionate about effectively supporting British endurance running and the first year of this new initiative of funding individual athletes has produced good results. Eight of our funded athletes were selected for the World Championships and now four of those have progressed onto the British Athletics Olympic Podium Potential Programme. The aim of this funding was to provide a pathway for talented endurance athletes and these results show it is working.

“We wish this year’s funded athletes every success and we hope to see a number of them in Team GB at the Olympic Games in Tokyo this summer.”

The full list of athletes to be offered London Marathon Events funding is:

Mohamud Aadan (Thames Valley), Charlotte Arter (Cardiff AAC, Alexandra Bell (Pudsey & Bramley), Elizabeth Bird (Shaftesbury Barnet), Emile Cairess (Leeds City), Hayley Carruthers (Birchfield Harriers), Rosie Clarke (Epsom & Ewell), Natasha Cockram (Micky Morris Racing Team), Jamaine Coleman (Preston), Ben Connor (Derby)

Piers Copeland (Wimborne), Stephanie Davis (Clapham Chasers), Nick Goolab (Belgrave Harriers), Derek Hawkins (Kilbarchan AAC), Jake Heyward (Cardiff AAC), Sarah Inglis (Lothian Running Club), Tish Jones (Belgrave Harriers)

Matt Leach (Bedford & County), Jonny Mellor (Liverpool Harriers), Amy-Eloise Neale (Wakefield District Harriers), Jennifer Nesbitt (Cardiff AAC), Verity Ockenden (Swansea Harriers), Chris O'Hare (Edinburgh AC)

Lily Partridge (Birchfield Harriers), Marc Scott (Cambridge & Coleridge), Zak Seddon (Bracknell AC), Jake Smith (Cardiff AAC), Jenny Spink (Bristol & West), Chris Thompson (Aldershot Farnham & District), Alice Wright (Worcester AC)