A pre-race outsider in a stellar field, the 28-year-old delivered Team GB’s first gold medal of the World Athletics Championships in Eugene
It meant that he started as an outsider in a stellar field that included the Olympic 1-2-3 of Jakob Ingebrigtsen, Timothy Cheruiyot and Josh Kerr – as well as Abel Kipsang, the world’s fastest man in 2022. A year ago in Tokyo, Wightman had finished 10th in such exalted company but in the depths of the winter father and son had concocted a daring plan to toughen Jr up.
Wightman retained close contact with the leaders as Kipsang, who had not lost a race all season, led and then slipped back at 700m. It was at that point Ingebrigtsen, the Olympic champion and the fastest man in the field, took over and pushed on. But the pace was never quite quick enough to blunt Wightman’s speed and with 200m to go he struck for glory.After he crossed the line, in a winning time of 3:29.23, Geoff’s first words were professionalism personified.
“The only point of having a good 800m PB in a race like that is if you are there with 200m to go,” said Wightman, whose win ended a sequence of seven successive golds from Kenya-born 1500m runners. “I knew the odds were getting more into my favour the later in the race it went. I felt strong but Jakob is a beast and I didn’t know if he was going to come back. But it never happened and I’m world champion.
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