Among the melting pot of thousand-year-olds that appears at the Ataköy Arena in Istanbul, Jakob Ingebrigtsen (22) accelerates in the last 300m and, robotic and economical, passes rivals until he is third, the position in which he finishes, in 3m50s29, just the last square that guarantees the capital Q, the direct classification to the final of the 1,500 (today, 18:40 Spanish time).
(Jesús Gómez also advances; Nacho Fontes, outside).
Knock knock knock, as efficient as it is economical is the stride of this lanky man who defies the logic of human evolution: in the era of the middle ground of the Atlas and black Africa, a Scandinavian appears on the scene and says: 'This is mine'.
Science, talent and moderation also offer gifts to European middle-distance runners.
It has been like this for some time now, that the little Ingebrigtsen shows his back to his adversaries, black and white.
Norwegian talent adds up to nine continental titles, nine between cross-country events and outdoor and indoor races, and another two are sought in this Indoor European Championship (another double like in Torun, in 2021?), a magnificent milestone that says it all : Jakob Ingebrigtsen is a kind of modern Coe, a cannibal and a guy who plays distraction, as we have seen little of him this winter, and yet here he flies, today in the 1,500 final and tomorrow in the 3,000 rounds, where Adel Mechaal awaits you.
(Mechaal, the man who eight days ago broke the Spanish indoor record of 1,500, a record that Andrés Díaz had signed in 1999, at the time of Cacho, Estévez, Viciosa and Pancorbo).
(...)
Jakob Ingebrigtsen is an ambassador of athletics and also an escapist.
Just as in Istanbul he plays with his rivals, he also comes and goes and appears and disappears, always under the umbrella of his clan, two of his brothers –Henrik and Filip, excellent athletes like Jakob–, and also everyone's partners, the children and the nephews... Gjert, the father, formerly the group's mentor, sort of a grumpy and fussy guru who no longer paints anything in the project, no longer goes with them.
Between father and sons, the thing has been broken. The kids have metabolized the system.
They have taken flight.
They train themselves.
(Leif Inge Tjelta, the physiologist who had scrutinized the saga, has not been there recently either: Tjelta passed away in these weeks).
You never know where the Ingebrigtsen clan is going to come out: on New Year's Eve they had appeared in Barcelona, committed as they were to competing in the 5K of the Cursa dels Nassos, and at the last moment, the mystery.
Jakob and Filip had said they were sick and had a sore throat and wouldn't run, and in the days that followed they had boarded the train, heading south to the Sierra Nevada, a runner's paradise, to get on the treadmill and jog like the mouse in the laboratory, distracting the eye, savoring the spectacle through the stained-glass windows, the prodigious white stage.
Curious.
From those snowy mountains, even in January, more contradictory news came, because Jakob Ingebrigtsen said he was still feeling bad, and he didn't know what he was going to do this winter, and he was analyzing and analyzing and he couldn't find what.
The mistery.
"Well, our boys, Katir and Mechaal, saw him train and everything seemed normal there," Antonio Serrano told this newspaper a few days ago.
(Serrano, Mechaal coach).
Ingebrigtsen was bad, or so he said, and then, into February, he looked out at Lievin and signed 3m32s38 in the 1,500m, the best world mark of the year.
And then again disappeared.
He had to compete in the Madrid meeting.
Nobody saw him there.
He finally reappeared tonight in Istanbul, a brilliant culmination to a bittersweet afternoon for the Spanish: in the 800, Lorea Ibarzábal passed round (how she cried when remembering her friend Bea, recently deceased, who would have had her birthday this Thursday: "we have both run Very good today") and Adrián Ben and Javier Mirón, but Saúl Ordóñez was left out, the last of his series, strangely disfigured (1m51s72; this winter he had run in 1m45s88, he had the second European record of the year).
"When they accelerated, my legs swelled up," said Ordóñez, puzzled.
(He does not apologize, he does not admit that he has spent several days confused, with a fever).
Marta Pérez and Marta García (3,000) are also still standing.
