Ingebrigtsen Achieves Special Indoor Double Feat

Norway's Jakob Ingebrigtsen won the 1,500m at the World Indoor Athletics Championships on March 23 to claim not only a first global gold in his favoured distance, but also a rare world indoor track distance double.

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Ingebrigtsen, who had won the 3,000m the previous day for his first world indoor title, clocked 3min 38.79sec to emulate the double claimed by Ethiopian legend Haile Gebrselassie in Maebashi, Japan in 1999.

Britain's Neil Gourley took silver in 3:39.07 while American Luke Houser rounded out the podium (3:39.17) in Nanjing, China.

"Of course this is something special," said Ingebrigtsen. "A lot of things have changed and I'm not doing this because anyone else has done it before. So that's purely a coincidence.

"It's very difficult to compare yourself against history and what others are doing.

"I'm only focusing on myself and I feel good to have done a lot of preparations, and that was always the main goal. It's not to do with something somebody else did before.

"I think I can do more, so I'll try to maximise that and grab the opportunity given to me."

Ingebrigtsen's victory also banished some of the Norwegian's 1,500m demons.

In his last outing at a world indoor meet in 2022, he finished second in the 1,500m to Ethiopian Samuel Tefera in Belgrade.