Ingebrigtsen narrowly denies Timothy Cheruiyot win in dramatic finish

Jakob Ingebrigtsen would put his Eugene Diamond League loss behind him to narrowly beat Timothy Cheruiyot in a photo finish in front of a home crowd.

The Norwegian 1500m Olympic champion needed a dive at the end to deny Churuiyot who had made a menacing surge around the 40m mark.

His time of 3:29.74 becomes the fastest this year and will serve as a statement of intent heading to the Olympics.

Cheruiyot season best

Cheruiyot set a season-best as he clocked 3:29:74, separated from the winner with less than a second, on a night when he had done everything right. This marks the return to form of the Doha 2019 world champion, a promising one ahead of the Paris showdown.

“It was a good race, I felt stronger than last time. So today, it was all about my improvement, and at the same time, I wanted to do my best and to give the crowd the show.” Cheruiyot commented after the race.

The Kenyan runner has been sidelined with a knee injury, leaving Ingebrigtsen and Britain’s Josh Kerr to turn take in the mile race. Ingebrigtsen defeated Cheruiyot in the postponed Tokyo 2020 Olympics, clocking 3:28.32 to Cheruiyot’s 3:29.01 while Kerr secured a bronze in 3:29.05.

Cheruiyot finished fourth in the 1,500m at the National Championships, in 3:40.23, after Boaz Kiprugut (3:39.23), Josephat Sang (3:38.74), and Brain Komen (3:37.91).

South African Akani Simbine continued his fine form in the 100m, clocking 9.94 to win the meet ahead of Japanese Sani Brown who clocked 9.99, and Emmanuel Eseme who came third on 10.01.

100m Olympic Champion Marcel Jacobs clocked 10.03 while Olympic silver medalist Yohan Blake finished with a 10.29.