It was not up to Jakob this time. He would have liked to have been involved, but the rules unfortunately did not allow it, says Espen Skoland, spokesperson for Ingebrigtsen, to the newspaper VG.
To get a wildcard to Thursday's Diamond League final in Zurich, a basic requirement is that the current athlete has run at least one previous DL gala during the season, but Ingebrigtsen has not competed at all outdoors due to his injured Achilles tendon.
His last race was when he set a world record and took World Championship gold on 1,500 meters indoors in March. He still tops the International Athletics Federation's (World Athletics) world ranking for the event. Ingebrigtsen won the DL final last year and also has an Olympic Games gold (2021) on the distance as well as two World Championship silvers (2022, 2023).
The desire to run in Switzerland still gives an indication that Ingebrigtsen is injury-free and that a World Championship start in Tokyo in September is possible.
It definitely points in the right direction, but there is still a lot of work left to be one hundred percent prepared for the World Championship. It is definitely a race against time, said the 24-year-old in a video on Youtube recently, reports the news agency NTB.
The Norwegian also has an Olympic Games gold (2024) and two World Championship golds (2022, 2023) on 5,000 meters.
