CNN
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Bobbing up and down in a swimming pool, his head barely above the surface of the water, Jakob Ingebrigtsen is being forced to take things slowly. Very, very slowly.
As he moves at a snail’s pace around the pool at his home in Sandnes, Norway, Ingebrigtsen is quietly plotting his return to the running track. An Achilles injury has kept him out of action of late, and the recovery process, which the two-time Olympic champion is documenting on his YouTube channel, seems arduous and painstaking – even boring.
As well as low-impact “aquajogging” around a small pool, Ingebrigtsen might work up a sweat on a cross-training machine or rehab his Achilles with some weighted calf lifts. It’s hardly a position he wants to be in with the World Athletics Championships less than three months away, but the 24-year-old still hopes to upgrade the gold and silver medal he won two years ago.
“I want to do that just a little bit better,” he tells CNN Sports. “That’s the main goal.”
Self-improvement is Ingebrigtsen’s raison d’être, constantly chasing ways to get fitter and faster. He broke the indoor mile and 1,500-meter world records earlier this year, adding to his outdoor records in the 2,000 and 3,000 meters.
Two indoor world titles in Nanjing, China followed, making him only the sixth male distance runner to win Olympic, world outdoor and world indoor gold medals. That seemed to set up Ingebrigtsen perfectly for the year ahead before his strained Achilles forced him to reevaluate things.
It’s unclear when he will be back racing, but it’s hardly changed the overarching ambitions for his running career.
“As an individual athlete, I want to be recognized as the best runner to exist,” says Ingebrigtsen, adding: “The goal is to compete as much as I can. I really enjoy testing myself and trying to run the fastest (possible) is a part of that test … I think my chances are good for running fast.”
Ingebrigtsen has used his time away from competitions to announce the launch Spring Run Club alongside a group of elite Norwegian athletes, including brothers Henrik and Filip.
It features an elite team for male and female athletes with access to high-end facilities, training camps and training plans – “everything that can be very difficult to facilitate if you’re by yourself,” says Ingebrigtsen.
The club also caters for amateur runners through its online platform, where members receive workout suggestions, nutrition tips and invites to group runs and races.
“There’s a very big interest in running, and it’s skyrocketed the last couple years,” says Ingebrigtsen. “I think we wanted to use the opportunity to inspire and help the average runner, hobby runner, sub elite, and also elite runner as the best way possible to inspire and bring our knowledge, our expertise.”
For Ingebrigtsen, the project is a way to broaden his sphere of influence beyond individual accolades, part of a goal to “improve the systems around the world and also in Norway.”
Perhaps more than most, Ingebrigtsen has seen how challenging the life of a professional athlete can be, especially when the relationship with your coach – who also happens to be a parent – begins to break down.
Up until 2022, he and his brothers were coached by their father, Gjert – the family patriarch who was renowned for maintaining a close grip on his children’s training and lifestyle. A documentary series, “Team Ingebrigtsen,” shed light on the father-son, athlete-coach dynamic, resulting in the Ingebrigtsens becoming the most famous family in track and field.
Then in October 2023, Jakob, Henrik and Filip publicly accused their father of using physical violence and threats towards them. Those allegations were followed by a high-profile trial in Norwegian courts, at the end of which Gjert was convicted of assaulting his daughter, Ingrid, leading to a suspended prison sentence and a 10,000 Norwegian Krone (just over $1,000) fine.
He was, however, acquitted of other charges, which included abusing Jakob, the family’s most decorated and well-known athlete. Gjert’s defense attorneys, John Christian Elden and Heidi Reisvang, said that the court verdict showed there was no evidence of the 59-year-old creating “a continuous fear in his children.”
Jakob spoke with CNN Sports while the trial was still ongoing. He did not want to comment on the outcome of the legal proceedings, according to his representative, Espen Skoland, but on the day the verdict was announced, he wrote a lengthy Instagram post about his own daughter, saying he “will love and respect her unconditionally.”
The rift with his father has resulted in Ingebrigtsen essentially being self-coached for the past three years of his career, though he does lean on his brothers, both experienced and decorated distance athletes in their own right, for guidance.
Such an approach is unusual among top athletes, who would rely on a coach to arrange their training and racing schedules.
“We just want to remove the whole coach principle because that’s not really an approach that we associate with,” says Ingebrigtsen. “I think it’s very important to understand what you’re doing, and if you don’t, then you only get this program from your coach (and) you’re not really understanding what you’re doing.
“Me, Henrik and Filip are coaching each other and discussing everything. We have a lot of knowledge and expertise between us, but still, we have different histories with different perspective, and also see things from a different point of view.”
Despite his age, Ingebrigtsen has already established himself as one of the greatest middle-distance runners of all time, with multiple Olympic, world and European titles already to his name.
He has, however, proven to be fallible, especially in such a competitive era for mile and 1,500-meter running. At last year’s Paris Olympics, Ingebrigtsen experienced perhaps the most disappointing day of his career, leading a star-studded 1,500m field for most of the race before fading in the closing stages. He finished fourth, his title defense ending in tatters, but did bounce back to take 5,000m gold a few days later.
That wasn’t the first time that Ingebrigtsen has been outkicked and outmuscled at a major race. He was bested by Great Britain’s Jake Wightman in the 1,500m at the 2022 World Athletics Champions, then again by another Brit, Josh Kerr, in the same race the following year.
The rivalry between Ingebrigtsen and Kerr has spilled into a war of words in recent years, roughly dating back to when the former claimed to have been under the weather during the 2023 world championships. Kerr has since aimed jabs at his rival’s ego, while Ingebrigtsen claimed last year that he could beat Kerr blindfolded in the 3,000 meters.
The pair have not met on the track since last year’s Olympics, with Kerr – along with Americans Cole Hocker and Yared Nuguse – signing up to race in Michael Johnson’s Grand Slam Track league.
Ingebrigtsen says that he has been watching some of those races from back home in Norway – Kerr won one of the three meets and finished second in another – but without reading too much into the results.
“Of course, I’m very focused on my own training and my own bubble at the moment, but I think the more competition, the better,” he says. “I’m a big competitor and a big fan of competitions, I think that’s what drives the sport forward.
“Ultimately, I think that the most important thing is that they (his rivals) have fun with doing what they’re doing. At the same time, it’s very difficult to kind of compare anything and pull and conclude anything out of the performances. If it’s fun, then it’s fun, and I think that’s the most important thing for them.”
It’s hard to believe, given the fierce competitor inside him, that Ingebrigtsen wasn’t watching those Grand Slam Track races with just a bit of envy. He says that he dialed back his training so as not to risk “a serious and career-threatening injury” further down the line, but is still hopeful of making a return soon. At the world championships in Tokyo, he will be out to prove that his performance at the Olympics was nothing more than a minor blip.
“For me, I always try to improve,” says Ingebrigtsen. “I always try to run a little bit faster, do things differently to see if we get a better result. Ultimately, you will at some point find the limits … That’s just a part of developing.”
