After a sizzling start to his 2025 campaign with double gold at March’s World Indoor Championships, Norway’s 5,000m Olympic champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen may be forced to delay his outdoor season opener due to injury.
On Monday, his press spokesperson Espen Skoland told Norwegian broadcaster NRK: “Jakob has suffered a slight injury to his Achilles. Work is now being done to make it happen, but he is not taking any risks.”
Ingebrigtsen had been slated to kick off his season on home turf in Norway at the Oslo Bislett Games on June 12. But now that Ingebrigtsen’s altitude training camp has already been postponed, there is uncertainty whether he will be competing anytime soon.
The injury is all too familiar for the Norwegian distance star; he also missed the 2023-24 indoor season due to Achilles troubles.
“With what he has done at Bislett in recent years, it is of course a big loss,” Steinar Hoen, Bislett Games event director, told NRK. Ingebrigtsen had been the presumed favourite in the 1,500m or the 5,000m–whichever distance he chose. Last year, he delivered a thrilling 1,500m victory in 3:29.74, edging Kenya’s Timothy Cheruiyot by three-hundredths of a second.
Fans can still look forward to appearances from other major stars, including Karsten Warholm, Mondo Duplantis and Julien Alfred, who are still set to compete at the Oslo Diamond League. Ingebrigtsen’s next race would be less than two weeks later at the Ostrava Golden Spike in the Czech Republic on June 24.
