Jakob Ingebrigtsen wasn’t even born when Moroccon Hicham El Guerrouj set the 2000m World Record of 4’44”79 in Berlin in 1999. The 2000m is an unusual distance in athletics, but still only world class athletes have held the World Record. Amongst them Algerian Noureddine Morceli, Moroccon Saïd Aouita, Briton Steve Cram and John Walker from New Zealand who are all legends in their own right in middle distance running. Further back in time, in 1948 the World Record was held by Gaston Reiff from Belgium who at that time crossed the line in Brussels in 5’07”.
75 years after Reiff Ingebrigtsen can set a new 2000m World Record in the Brussels arena. And he clearly has all the potential to do so. Ingebrigtsen has an Olympic title in the 1500m and a World title in the 5000m and he holds the Area Records on both distances. Last week he improved his own European 1500m Record at the Diamond League meeting in Chorzow to 3’27”15. At the age of 19 Ingebrigtsen already set a European 2000m Record in Oslo in 4’50”01.
The next goal for Ingebrigtsen are the World Championships in Budapest (19-27 August). After that he will set his sights on Friday Sep.,8th to make the 2000m World Record his own in Brussels.
Ingebrigtsen is not the only World Class athlete who is confirmed to compete at the 47th Allianz Memorial Van Damme. Also Mondo Duplantis, Yaroslava Mahuchikh, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, Nafi Thiam and Bashir Abdi will be on the infield amongst others.
