Jake Wightman has revealed how he overcame “very bleak years” to land a World Athletics Championships silver medal in a thrilling men’s 1500m final in Tokyo.
The 2022 world champion has battled injuries in recent years and left his father and coach Geoff Wightman to change his training set-up in a bid to return to the pinnacle of the sport.
Wightman negotiated the heats and semi-final superbly and appeared a real threat, alongside Great Britain teammate and defending champion Josh Kerr, who pulled up injured to finish last.
And the Briton took the lead over favourite Niels Laros, of the Netherlands, with 200m remaining, only for Portuguese athlete Isaac Nader to pip him on the line by two hundredths of a second in 3mins 34.10secs.
“That [coming back to a major final] has always kept me going,” a thrilled Wightman told BBC Sport after finishing ahead of Kenya’s Reynold Cheruiyot, who won bronze. “I still thought I had something like this in me. All I knew today is I wanted to try and win, whether that got me the win, second, third, however high up, I would be happy to walk away with it.
“When you come that close to winning it, you can’t help but be a bit, ‘what if I tried a bit more?’ But, honestly, I’ve left everything out there. It’s been a very bleak couple of years for me. A lot of times I doubted myself to get back to this level.
“Making the team was the main thing, I made some huge changes in my life to get back to this point. It’s not just affected me, my fiancee has relocated from London, our home for eight years, to Manchester, to be closer to therapy, I got a new coach, and new set-up, I felt that is what I needed, they are big changes that have had a big impact on me.
“I hoped it was for the best, it took a while this season to believe they were. You keep waiting and waiting, and when the big stage comes, like it has, I could perform when it matters.”
Wightman positioned himself well throughout the race, with Kerr locked in the middle of the pack and trapped against the rail, while Neil Gourley, the third Team GB athlete in the race, raced near the back.
With Laros unable to inject much pace on the back straight of the final lap, Wightman replicated his tactics from 2022 when he surged past Jakob Ingebrigtsen for gold in Eugene, but despite holding off Cheruiyots, including 2019 world champion Timothy Cheruiyot, Nader burst through in lane three to take a dramatic win.
Wightman, 31, paid tribute to his father for the work completed from his days a junior, before proclaiming how his silver medal felt like a gold.
“I want to thank my Dad for getting me to this point in the first point,” Wightman added. “He did all the hard work, bringing me to this level, the new set-up has just helped me stay here. It’ll take a while to process this.
“I’m a big believer that you get what you put in at some point, when I kept getting kicked when I was down. I just kept believing that Karma would come back and give me a bit of luck. I’m very, very happy that I proved the persistence was worth it.
“I knew that through the rounds I had another gear, all I knew is I would hit the front at some point, I believed that would be close enough to try and win it. For me this is a gold, just getting on the start line in a championship final is a gold. I went in with a bit of freedom, knowing whatever happened, happened, I’m so relieved.”
