As with most startling moments in life, I can recall exactly where I was and what I was doing. Sitting in front of a portable TV in the family kitchen in Churchtown watching Daniel Komen run 7:20.67 for 3,000m.
It was 28 years ago, the tail end of the 1996 track and field season, and Komen, a 20-year-old from Kenya, had established himself as one of those athletes who liked to race often and race hard. The harder the better.
On that late summer night in Rieti, Italy, Komen went out so hard that Tim Hutchings and Steve Cram, who were just starting out as Eurosport commentators, were suitably aghast. Especially when Komen passed through the first 800m inside 1:57.
Hutchings was certain the pace was too hard, but Komen kept going and knocked a five-second chunk off the world record.
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The following summer, Komen went at it again, running 7:58.61 over two miles, in Hechtel, Belgium – the first man in history to run two sub-four minute miles back-to-back. As if to underline the magnificence of that feat, Komen ran his first mile in 3:59.21, faster than Roger Bannister when becoming the first man to run sub-four. He followed that with a second mile in 3:59.40 – exactly what Bannister had run, back in 1954.
Those times inevitably raised suspicions. But those who trained or raced against him say no way, that Komen was definitely running clean, just one of those rare freaks of nature who occasionally come along to completely rewrite the record books.
It was as if the only tactic he knew was front running. Then, typical perhaps of people who prefer to live life in the fast lane, Komen soon burned out rather than faded away. It seemed his motivation plummeted and when he failed to make the Sydney Olympics in 2000, he effectively quit.
Which brings me to that incredible sense of deja vu when watching Jakob Ingebrigtsen run 7:17.55 for 3,000m at the Silesia Diamond League in Poland last Sunday week. In the 28 years since Komen ran his 7:20.67, no other runner had come within two seconds. It was the longest-standing men’s distance-running world record in the books, considered by some as untouchable.
That Ingebrigtsen then came out and took a three second chunk off it clearly surprised even himself, a rare thing for the 23-year-old Norwegian. Hutchings happened to be on the TV commentary from Silesia too, and promptly declared: “Ingebrigtsen doesn’t just rip world records up, he liquidises them.”
Ingebrigtsen clearly shares that same Komen spirit of preferring to race often and race hard. Last year at the Paris Diamond League, he also broke through Komen’s two-mile mark, which had stood since 1997, running 7:54.10 – just over 4½ seconds faster.
He is also benefitting from what may or may not be considered a part of the natural progression in distance running, Nike’s carbon-plated super spikes on the track (and super shoes off it), plus the Wavelight pacing lights on the perimeter of the track, allowing him to run to his exact preference of pacing.
As it turned out, that was 3:54.72-mile pace, or 58.34 seconds per lap for the 7½ laps, certainly superior to his 7:54.10 two-mile. According to the World Athletics scoring tables, only the marathon world record of 2:00:35 run by the late Kelvin Kiptum in October 2023 ranks higher among the men’s distance records, and Ingebrigtsen is clearly not finished yet.
After also breaking the rarely contested 2,000m record last year (running 4:43.13 to eclipse the 4:44.79 set by Hicham El Guerrouj in 1999) Ingebrigtsen told the Norwegian newspaper VG that he wanted to eventually break every world record from 1,500m through to the marathon. Three down, only seven to go.
No top distance runner has raced more than Ingebrigtsen this year. After missing the indoor season because of injury, he lost his opening race over the mile at the Prefontaine Classic, finishing second to Britain’s Josh Kerr, then going unbeaten in finals (collecting another European 1,500m-5,000m double in June) before the Olympic 1,500m final in Paris, where despite running 3:28.24, inside his old Olympic record, he had to settle for fourth – before bouncing right back to win the 5,000m gold.
Three days before Silesia, he got some revenge on the man who took his Olympic title in Paris, comfortably beating Cole Hocker from the US in Lausanne. On Thursday he took on Hocker, Kerr and Yared Nuguse (who won bronze in Paris) again at the Zurich Diamond League. This time Nuguse beat Ingebrigtsen into second place in another thriller.
Against this backdrop came the news this week that Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone from the US, who likes to race hard but not very often, was unable to secure a place in the Diamond League final in Brussels next weekend despite originally entering as a “wild card” in both the 200m and 400m.
The problem is the Olympic champion and world record holder in the 400m hurdles didn’t fulfil the requirement of racing at least one Diamond League meeting already this season. So instead of racing against the likes of our own Rhasidat Adeleke, she must contest what are effectively B races in Brussels, against unknown opposition.
No top sprinter has raced less than McLaughlin-Levrone this year, or in recent years for that matter, and yet the 25-year-old from New Jersey has improved the world record in her event six times already in just three seasons. She took it from 51.90 in 2021 to 50.37 in the Olympic final in Paris last month, now touching on the once seemingly impossible 50-second barrier.
She also ran that blistering 47.70 split in the 4x400m relay in Paris, helping the US to the gold medal in 3:15.27, just 0.1 shy of the world record, in the race where the Irish quartet finished fourth.
Still, if McLaughlin-Levrone isn’t willing to race a little more often, it’s hardly surprising she’s not getting much sympathy after being told she can’t race in the Diamond League final in Brussels.
