this is getting out of control! age don't mean anything! look at the physical maturity of the individual. He looks at least 17 so obviously an early bloomer. Do you really thing Jakob look this old as a 14 year old?
Umm.. He has not yet completed male XY puberty, so technically he has no advantage over his female competitors. He should not be allowed in bathrooms. He is also oppressive to so-called feminists. Undo this immediately or stand in defiance to the liberal extremists. Something something... Gametes!
this is getting out of control! age don't mean anything! look at the physical maturity of the individual. He looks at least 17 so obviously an early bloomer. Do you really thing Jakob look this old as a 14 year old?
I agree he looks older than 14 (though maybe not 17) and that “shoe doping” has changed the game such that we shouldn’t be comparing times across eras anymore. But, let’s give this kid his due. If he’s truly 14, it’s a ridiculously amazing time.
Omg, can no one on letsrun say something nice. The kid is 14. I have said it 1000 times here. You can win a gold medal at the Olympics and it still isn't good enough around here. Its the shoes, drugs, a time trial, puberty, elevation, March, anything and everything, you will find some thumbs down to a performance the community should be rejoicing in.
Did Jakob run in superspikes when he was 14? There's your comparison.
I didn't say this kid is better than Jakob, it's just a compliment to Jakob that any teen running the same sort of times as he did is an exciting talent.
It's nice that Jakob has so many passionate defenders here these days. Far cry to when there was a handful of us championing him when he was 14, and he had overwhelming hate here for him until at least Tokyo.
this is getting out of control! age don't mean anything! look at the physical maturity of the individual. He looks at least 17 so obviously an early bloomer. Do you really thing Jakob look this old as a 14 year old?
Hard to say from one photo. He certainly looked 12 a couple of years ago when setting the fastest parkrun for his age.
Jakob was professionally trained from a young age and did have the advantage of having two elite distance runners as older brothers.
Jakob closed that 3000m in like 1:59 for the last 800m and he wasn’t running for a time but just for the win.
Still, insane performance from that kid.
Now that western runners are training at young ages and running fast times, do we still think all those 17 year old Kenyans and Ethiopians are age cheats? If Jacob can lead a WC for 4900m, is kipchoge leading for 5000m really that unreasonable?
what a prodigy is changes a lot when kids start somewhat serious training at 10 and can start doing serious mileage at 14 instead of need I 2 years to build..