09/17/25 09:52:00
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09/17 09:50 CDT Portugal's Isaac Nader is the out-of-nowhere winner of men's
1,500 meters at world championships
Portugal's Isaac Nader is the out-of-nowhere winner of men's 1,500 meters at
world championships
By EDDIE PELLS
AP National Writer
TOKYO (AP) --- This year's out-of-nowhere winner of the men's 1,500 meters
hails from Portugal. It's Isaac Nader, who ran five wide down the stretch
Wednesday night to pull what can only be described as a stunner at world
championships, even against a field that lost three of its top contenders long
before the finish line.
Nader took advantage of a leisurely pace and beat 2022 champion Jake Wightman,
who also wasn't expected to contend, by .02 seconds. The winning time: 3
minutes, 34.10 seconds.
"There were 14 men in the final, and I thought it was possible to win," Nader
said. "I told myself before the race that I was either going to finish 14, or I
was going to finish first."
Reynold Cheruiyot finished third while one of the favorites, Niels Laros, faded
at the end and wound up fifth. Another top contender, 2023 world champ Josh
Kerr, pulled up lame in the third lap and then finished the race nearly 30
seconds off the pace.
The 26-year-old Nader came in ranked eighth in the world and had never placed
in a major championship. He was a 50-1 longshot.
"It's the same story every year in the 15," Wightman said. "Whoever goes in the
favorite always seems to have a bit too much of a target. I don't think one
person would have expected Nader to win that."
Laros, the 20-year-old from The Netherlands, was considered the odds-on
favorite. His chances only got better when the reigning Olympic champ, Cole
Hocker, got disqualified for jostling in the semifinals and the 2021 Olympic
gold medalist, Jakob Ingebrigtsen, came to Tokyo out of form and didn't make it
out of the opening heats.
Then, Kerr started limping at about the 800-meter mark --- leaving Wightman and
2019 champion Timothy Cheruiyot as the only two racers left with winning
experience at the highest level.
Laros traded the lead with Timothy Cheruiyot over the first three laps but
finished only one spot ahead of his placement at the Paris Games last year,
where he was a bit player in a drama involving Kerr, Ingebrigtsen and Hocker.
"It's not the first time I'm surprised in this championship about something
that happened in the 15," Laros said.
Nader's biggest win up to now was in the Dream Mile in Oslo in June --- a race
that didn't feature any of the top names in four-lap races.
That probably explained his look of pure shock when Nader looked up at the
scoreboard and saw he was finishing first, barely ahead of Wightman, who
stumbled to the ground at the finish but came up short.
Asked to describe in Portuguese his feelings about coming from nowhere to put
his name next to some of this sport's greatest champions --- champions of the
metric mile --- Nader said: "Inacreditvel (Unbelievable)."
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