The last time Jakob Ingebrigtsen ran at a global track and field championship, he couldn’t wear socks.
“He was hurting so much,” older brother Henrik said. “But he was still leading with (about) 400 (meters) to go.”
That was the 5000m at the 2025 World Championships in Tokyo, a distance the Norwegian won at the previous worlds in 2022 and 2023 and at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Ingebrigtsen, after moving to the lead at 3,600 meters, faded to 10th in the final lap in his only meet of the 2025 outdoor season after being sidelined by an Achilles injury.
Ingebrigtsen was in a similar situation Friday night in Budapest — among the leaders with a lap to go in the 5000m at the first World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest, the biggest meet of 2026.
ULTIMATE CHAMPIONSHIP: Results | Broadcast Schedule
Only this time, it’s believed he can bear wearing socks.
Ingebrigtsen went from fourth to first in the last 200 meters, covering it in 26.07 seconds to, as he jokingly put it, “crush” the field (notably American Cole Hocker, the 2024 Olympic 1500m gold medalist and 2025 World 5000m champion).
“Reaching that level of fitness again is maybe what I’m most proud of,” Ingebrigtsen said of running the second-fastest 5000m of his career (12:59.24). “Coming from last two years, it’s 100% no guarantee that I will ever be at this level ever again.”
Just two months ago, Ingebrigtsen thought he wouldn’t race at all in 2026.
He underwent Achilles surgery in February — a “last resort,” said Henrik, who in retrospect laments not doing it last autumn.
Ingebrigtsen managed to train on an elliptical and a bike in early spring, but he got sick in May and did “basically nothing” until late July, Henrik said.
Yet Ingebrigtsen trekked anyway to train in the picturesque altitude of St. Moritz in the Swiss Alps. He got up to speed quickly.
The 25-year-old from Sandnes can thank his base dating to his wunderkind era — two-a-day workouts and a handful of interval sessions a week since he was 9 years old.
“So there’s something there, still,” Henrik reasoned.
In his first race back, after less than a month of practice, he won the European Championships 5000m in Birmingham, England, on Aug. 10. From there, Ingebrigtsen ran three Diamond League 1500m races -- fourth place on Aug. 23, fifth on Aug. 27 and fourth on Sept. 4.
“Of course, he’s very tapered now and he’s pulled everything out he could the last few weeks,” Henrik said, “but it’s still based on nothing, right? His foundation is nothing.”
Ingebrigtsen, who prefers the 1500m over the 5000m, is famously confident on and off the track, a man who embodies the all-out spirit of Steve Prefontaine and chides competitors who sit and kick.
He laughed late Friday night over a data-based prediction that he’d place 12th in Budapest. Yet he also didn’t fancy his chances.
“But I’m very surprised that no one else was confident that I was going to win,” he said.
Given the circumstances, this title is among his greatest accomplishments: sub-four-minute mile at age 16, Olympic 1500m gold at 20, all those 5000m titles, plus world records in the 2000m, 3000m and two miles (3218m) outdoors and the 1500m and mile indoors.
“He’s maneuvering in the field like he never left,” Henrik said.
Ingebrigtsen announced Saturday that he will not race Sunday’s 1500m, saying his body is not ready to compete twice in three days.
