The men’s 1500 meters at the World Athletics Championships once again lived up to its reputation for chaos and drama, as Portugal’s Isaac Nader stormed down the home straight in Tokyo on Wednesday night to snatch an improbable gold medal.
Nader, 25, crossed the line in 3:34.10, edging Britain’s Jake Wightman by just 0.02 seconds in one of the closest finishes of the championships so far. Kenya’s Reynold Cheruiyot, still only 18 years old, claimed bronze a further hundredth of a second back.
For Portugal, it was a landmark moment. Nader became just the second athlete from the country ever to win a world title in the 1500m, following in the footsteps of Carla Sacramento’s triumph in 1997.
It also marked the first global crown of his career at any level, junior or senior, for a runner who had, until this year, mostly flown under the radar. He did pick up a European indoor bronze in March, but few would have penciled him in as a world champion heading into Tokyo.
The final itself unfolded at an unexpectedly slow pace. Dutch prodigy Niels Laros, the reigning Diamond League champion, and Kenya’s 2019 world champion Timothy Cheruiyot controlled the early laps, leaving the field bunched together at the bell.
Defending champion Josh Kerr of Great Britain looked comfortable until about 870 meters in, when he suddenly began to limp and slipped to the back of the pack. Clearly hampered by injury, he eventually crossed the line in 4:11.23, last place on a night that ended in disappointment for the Olympic silver medalist.
That left the door open. Wightman, who has battled Achilles and hamstring injuries since his 2022 world title in Oregon, rolled the dice with 200 meters to go. His surge to the front looked like the winning move, echoing the tactics that once made him the best in the world. For most of the homestretch it seemed enough.
But Nader, coming from wide on the outside, wound up his kick with perfect timing and edged past the Scot in the final lean.
“I came so close,” Wightman told Olympics.com afterwards. “I thought someone was coming, and I just did everything I could… the only way I could have topped that was with the win, but there’s nothing else I could have done.”
The result underscored just how open the men’s 1500m has become. Neither of the last two Olympic champions, Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Cole Hocker, even made the final. America’s Yared Nuguse, who sits atop the world rankings, failed to qualify out of the U.S. Championships.
Laros, widely tipped to seize his first global medal, faded to fifth in 3:34.52. In the end, it was Nader, unheralded on the world stage until now, who kept his composure in the chaos and sprinted into history.
The men’s 1500m has long been called the “metric mile of mayhem”, but in this era it feels especially true. Since the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, every global title has gone to a different athlete, Ingebrigtsen, Kerr, Wightman, Hocker, and now Nader. It is a revolving door of champions, a testament to both the depth of the field and the brutal unpredictability of championship racing.
For Portugal, Wednesday’s gold was a cause for celebration. For Nader, it was confirmation that he belongs at the very top of the sport. And for the rest of the middle-distance world, it was a reminder, in the 1500m, no favorite is safe.
