Jake Wightman has arrived in Budapest for the inaugural edition of the World Athletics Ultimate Championship, competing in Sunday’s 1500m as he looks to make up for lost time after a challenging spell.
Wightman is only too happy to fly under the radar in ‘the toughest 1500m field’ ever assembled after another season marred by injury. It is far from the first time that the 2022 world champion has had to deal with the injury bug.
Return to the podium
Having spent the best part of the two years following his global crown in Eugene, Oregon, missing out on major events, Wightman returned to the World Championship podium last year with silver in Tokyo. However, after a strong start to the outdoor season, he suffered calf tightness and then a back issue that required an epidural 10 days before the Commonwealth Games.
As compatriot Josh Kerr streaked clear to the acclaim of the Scotstoun crown for mile glory, a matter of weeks after breaking the 27-year-old world record in the event, Wightman was run down on the final straight – usually his strength – finishing sixth. A week later, it was a similar story at the Europeans in Birmingham, finishing in the same position over 1500m.
Motivation and redemption
After the frustrations over those two races, the 32-year-old Wightman is not lacking for motivation in an elite field that features Kerr, his great Norwegian rival Jakob Ingebrigtsen, Olympic champion Cole Hocker, and world champion Isaac Nader, who edged out Wightman last year in Japan.
Wightman said: “If my champs had gone the way I wanted, I think I would be feeling a lot less motivated towards this but because I don’t feel I’ve proved myself at all this year, this is my chance to do that. I’m excited to get a bit of redemption.
“I’m hoping I can come in under the radar, I think that is when I run my best. There is no talk about me which for better or worse, I’m going to try and go out there and do as well as I can. I hope it can be my best run of the year. But you are racing against perhaps the best field it’s ever been for the 1500m. The ‘ultimate’ test! Even without Jakob and Josh being added, it was tough, but with them it becomes the toughest field there has ever been. I think more than anything, if you go well here and manage to win it, it makes it an even more incredible achievement.”
A summer of frustration
While Wightman is now fully fit, it follows a summer of frustration as his body betrayed him once again. That disappointment was exacerbated by the fact that he had started the season like a house on fire.
He said: “My May and June was the best it’s ever been, I went to Monaco and ran the fastest 1k I think I could have done on the day. Three days later, I was on a run and my calf felt tight. I had a nerve in my back that was not very happy, it took two weeks where I could get to a point where I could run again with no pain. I got to Commies and was managing it. After Commies it disappeared and I had a week between them and Europeans, I thought I had done enough work but by that point it had been three weeks of disrupted training.
“It’s a shame because I don’t think I ran the races badly, I think I ran them the way I believed I should to be able to win but I just didn’t have the edge I needed. There was nothing I could have done, that is the most gutting thing. It’s the nature of how your body reacts to stuff at times.”
A new era for athletics
The three-day event in Budapest marks a new era for athletics, with World Athletics president Seb Coe hoping that some of the innovations that will be on show – including a live draft for the 200m lanes, a new format for field events and the elimination of ties in vertical jumps – will be adopted at World Championships and Olympics in the future.
He said: “We want this championship to be an incubator for change. As a proud Sheffielder, I would call this a blast furnace, ultimately casting what our sport can look like going forward. We want to take some of those innovations into the World Championships and the Olympic Games.”
