The top time this year is 12:36. I don’t think he could have run that but who knows.
I don’t think anyone could run 12:36. That was done with the aid of pacers. But, I actually think Jakob can run mid 12:30s at a minimum. To me he is like Mo Farah. A great 5000m runner who happens to be fast enough to also be really good at 1500m. You can’t argue with results, and 3 consecutive world titles say that he’s a dominant 5000m runner.
He hasn’t run a paced 5000m recently, and his 12:48 PR was from a time when he was also slower at 1500m. I have little doubt he could go much faster right now.
By the way, the field didn’t leave it to the end. Jakob had to run a final 1600 of 3:51. And he made those mid 12:30s guys look completely outclassed doing it. So 100% I don’t think it was a matter of tactics by the Ethiopians. Nobody was going to beat him in that race. Especially when we saw what happened in the 10000. The Ethiopians tried the whole torrid pace from the start thing. It didn’t work. It didn’t work for Jakob in the 1500. It’s just impossible to front run and for that long drop your competition at this level.
4 Likes