Dawit Seare Wins World 5K Title After Chasing Down Jakob Ingebrigtsen

Dawit Seare ran 12:56 in Copenhagen on Saturday to win the men’s 5K at the World Athletics Road Running Championships, beating Jakob Ingebrigtsen by three seconds after the Norwegian had led inside the final 200 meters.

With 200 meters to run, Ingebrigtsen was in front. He had come off Seare’s shoulder and gone by, the finishing move he has built a career on. Seare went after him anyway, drew even inside the last 100 meters, and had a stride in hand when the clock stopped. His 12:56 is an Eritrean record. Ingebrigtsen’s 12:59 is a Norwegian record, and he ran it on his 26th birthday.

“I am very, very happy because I have been preparing very well for the last two months for this championships,” Seare said in Copenhagen.

The winning time is quicker than anything Seare has run for 5,000m on a track, where his best is still the 13:07.77 he set in 2024, the year he made the Olympic final in Paris. It is also three seconds faster than the 12:59 Hagos Gebrhiwet ran to win in Riga in 2023, the championship record from the only previous edition of these championships. Seare was in that race too. He was 18, and he finished fourth in 13:21.

Saymon Amanuel took bronze in 13:00, at 19, and Eritrea left with two of the three medals. The country’s world titles have belonged almost entirely to two men until now: Zersenay Tadese, who won five world road titles between 2006 and 2012, and Ghirmay Ghebreslassie, the world marathon champion in 2015.

Copenhagen was Ingebrigtsen’s third weekend of racing in a row and his sixth start since he came back on Aug. 10. He was fourth in the 1,500m at the Diamond League final in Brussels on Sept. 4, won the 5,000m at the Ultimate Championship in Budapest eight days before this one, and came to Denmark with one road 5K on his record, a 13:28 in Stavanger in 2020. All of it has come seven months after surgery on the sheath around his left Achilles, which kept him out of racing for about 11 months.

“I felt that it was so far to the finish line and I hoped that the others would maybe freeze a little bit and they did,” he said.

He had called this one two years ago after his half marathon debut at the Copenhagen Half in September 2024, Ingebrigtsen told the organizers he wanted to come back to the city in 2026, “but maybe not for the half marathon.”

France set the race up and didn0t really get much from it. The pace was Flavien Szot’s from the gun, 2:38 at the kilometer and 5:20 at 2K, and once he had done the job he pulled off the road. Jimmy Gressier, the European 5K record holder at 12:51, took the lead his teammate left him and then lost it to Amanuel before 3K. He finished 14th in 13:17.

Ky Robinson was fourth in 13:04, an Oceanian record, having come to Copenhagen off the Commonwealth 10,000m title and a ninth place at the Ultimate Championship. Keneth Kiprop of Uganda was given the same time in fifth, with Addisu Yihune sixth in 13:07 and Mezgebu Sime seventh in 13:08. Likina Amebaw won the women’s 5K in 14:41.

Robert Farken and Agathe Guillemot had taken the road mile titles that morning, Farken in 3:51.80 ahead of Yared Nuguse, and Guillemot in a European record of 4:22.74.

Gressier is back out at 9:45 a.m. on Sunday for the half marathon, one of 10 athletes who entered two races in Copenhagen.