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Jakob Ingebrigtsen
is not a nice guy.
He can gather a small group of international journalists and tell them that he doesn't want to talk about his family, his team and his training plans.
He can respond with monosyllables.
He can only grant two or three smiles in more than 20 minutes of conversation.
And he gives so much.
Jakob Ingebrigtsen is not in Eugene to be the sharpest, to arouse sympathy, to please anyone.
In fact, as he spent with studies and reading, it is possible that he has calculated the physical exhaustion that interviews cause him and simply tries to minimize it.
Jakob Ingebrigtsen is here to follow in his footsteps.
Destination: Olympus.
Where there is a dozen,
Nurmi, Zapotek, Keino, Coe, Cram, Aouita, Morceli, Gebrselassie, El Guerrouj, Bekele, Farah
and stop counting.
After his victory in the 1,500 meters at the Tokyo Olympics, if he achieves his goal here, the double in the 1,500 and 5,000 meters, he will propel himself into that imaginary of tartan stars.
And he will also do it far from his father,
Gjert Ingebrigtsen
, who marked him so much.
Because in February "because of wear and tear", Gjert left his coach and now Jakob, at 21 years old -remember him for the next answer-, trains alone.
At first they tried to justify it with a supposed illness of the parent, but in the end they ended up recognizing that it was separating or stopping talking.
Now how do you plan your preparation? I have a lot of experience.
I've been a professional for a long time, I've been following the same training program for 10 years.
Actually, there is not much difference.
I don't do experiments, I don't try anything new.
I simply have a program that I believe in and, if necessary, I adapt it.
If I have any questions I call Henrik and Filip [his older brothers, both European 1500 champions] and that's it.
Two days ago, Jakob Ingebrigtsen passed the first round of the 1,500 meters, if there was not a tremendous surprise, last morning he passed the semifinals of the distance and this morning from Tuesday to Wednesday (04:50 am, Teledeporte) he will play the final.
Then there will still be the 5,000-meter series on Thursday and the final of that distance on Sunday, one of the highlights of the closing of the World Cup.
The last time he attempted the double, three years ago at the Doha World Cup, he was left without a podium finish, but now he assures that he is much better prepared.
"In Doha I was already better than fourth in the 1,500 meters and fifth in the 5,000 meters. It was a great disappointment. But after that World Cup many people stopped due to the pandemic, they got injured, they couldn't keep up the level and I year year after year I improved my speed. Now I'm more prepared",
Somehow he wants to get away from his own image, the one that created the series 'Team Ingebrigtsen', a reality show with exaggerated success in Norway that has followed all his steps since he was 10 years old.
It showed how Gjert evaluated his physiology when he was just a kid, how he picked him out of his siblings, how he guided his steps with exaggerated scientific detail [he can never train above 87% of his maximum effort, for example] and, in ultimately, how it made him the athlete he is.
Gjert's method has always been the protagonist of his successes and, apparently, he's had enough.
One more motivation, although they are never lacking.
Do you think you can beat El Guerrouj's world record in the 1,500 meters?
Probably not.
[A few long seconds pass] It's like asking a 100-meter runner if he can go under nine seconds.
I still have a long way to go, although I am more prepared than before and I hope to be faster in the future.
First I have to go below 3.28 seconds, then 3.27 and then we can talk about the record [it's 3.26].
Ingebrigtsen speaks and he only speaks of running, of continuing to run.
He actually admits that his life "is boring" because he tries only to run, eat and rest, then run, eat and rest, then run, eat and rest.
After the World Cup, he already plans to concentrate on altitude in Sankt Moritz, in Switzerland, try to win the 1,500 and 5,000 meters of the European Championships in Munich in August, and is even studying his training until the European Cross Country to be held in December.
Jakob Ingebrigtsen is not a nice guy, but he is very good at what he does, perhaps as good as the greatest in history.
And now he wants to prove that he doesn't need anyone, not even his father Gjert, to do it.
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