Confident Jakob Ingebrigtsen beats loaded men’s 5,000 field at World Athletics Championships: ‘I was the better runner’

EUGENE — A disappointed Jakob Ingebrigtsen is a dangerous guy.

Ingebrigtsen toyed with a word-class field en route to winning the 5,000 meters Sunday in the World Athletics Championships at Hayward Field.

The Norwegian mid-distance star took the lead with two and a half laps to go and held it to the finish, crossing in 13 minutes, 9.24 seconds.

The victory went a long way toward making up for Tuesday’s 1,500, when Britain’s Jake Wightman upset Ingebrigtsen for the gold medal.

“I didn’t want a sprint finish because then some people would have said that it was a coincidence, it was a tactical race,” Ingrebigtsen said. “But today was not a tactical race. I just won it because I was the better runner.”

He has the gold medal to prove it. Kenya’s Jacob Krop was second in 13:09.98 and Oscar Chelimo of Uganda third in 13.10.20.

Team USA’s Grant Fisher, who was challenging for a medal coming off the final turn on the last lap, got tangled in traffic, lost his positioning and finished sixth.

Moh Ahmed of Canada, who trains with Fisher on the Portland-based, Nike-sponsored Bowerman Track Club, kicked around Fisher and claimed fifth.

But this was Ingebrigtsen’s show.

“My race plan?” he said, repeating a question. “I just wanted to win.”

He was calm and matter of fact throughout, even veering away from the pack midway through the race to snag a cup of water from a volunteer on the outside of the track.

“I realized with the heat I was very dry,” he said.

While conceding he wasn’t happy with the results in the 1,500, the 21-year-old Ingebrigtsen said: “If Tuesday would have been different, I think today would have been very much the same.”

Confidence, obviously, was not an issue, even with some very good runners chasing him on the final home straight as an engaged crowd of 12,143 cheered the finish.

Fisher looked for the all the world like he could have been in the mix.

He had stayed near the front for the entire race, and was third with inside position as he passed the Hayward tower on the northeast corner of the track with 200 to go.

Then, disaster. Fisher was coming onto the home straight amid a group of at least five runners jockeying for the best position to pursue Ingebrigtsen.

“It happened really fast,” he said.

Trying to reconstruct it, Fisher said: “I just got caught with the back kick of the guy right in front of me. I was pretty much going straight into the rail, so I had to chop my steps to stay up.”

Ahmed was one of the guys who flashed past him.

Ahmed said Fisher “came almost to a dead stop as I was coming up on his shoulder, passing. It sucked.”

Ahmed finished in 13:10.46, and Fisher in 13:11.65. Reigning Olympic champion Joshua Cheptegei was ninth.

After collecting a silver medal in last summer’s Olympics and a bronze at the last world championships in Doha in 2019, Ahmed came away empty-handed this time.

“When you’ve been at the podium with the last two goes at this, you don’t want to be off the podium,” Ahmed said. “I have to re-evaluate a few things.”

But neither Ahmed nor Fisher found fault with their races strategically.

“I covered moves,” Ahmed said. “I don’t think I could have run any better.”

Fisher’s first 4,900 meters were pretty good too.

“I really felt I had a chance to get a medal this week,” said Fisher, fourth in last Sunday’s 10,000.

“I came up short twice, so that sucks.”

Here are results from the World Athletics Championships.

— Ken Goe for The Oregonian/OregonLive

KenGoe1020@gmail.com | Twitter: @KenGoe