Jake Wightman pipped on line as Isaac Nader surges to 1500m World Championship gold

We have seen some extraordinary men’s 1500m finals in recent years. Put Tokyo down as another stone-cold classic. Most expected a shootout between Britain’s Josh Kerr and the young Dutch superstar Niels Laros. Instead the Portuguese Isaac Nader swooped from the gods and ripped up the script.

For much of the final 200m it looked as though Britain’s Jake Wightman was about to repeat his gold medal victory in Eugene in 2022. That would have been some story, given he has missed much of the past three years since because of a succession of injuries, starting with a fractured foot while doing plyometrics.

However, the 26-year-old Nader had other ideas. In the last 50m he began a victory surge that took him from fifth to his first world title – but only just. His time of 3min 34.10sec was a mere 0.02 ahead of Wightman, who took a brilliant silver. Reynold Cheruiyot won the bronze.

Wightman told BBC Sport: “All I knew today was I was going to try to run to win. Whether that got me the win, second or third, however high up, I would just be happy I walked away with it. But when you come that close to winning it, you can’t help but be a little bit ‘what if I had tried a bit more?’ but I left everything out there.”

Wightman was relieved to have come through a testing spell off the track. “It has been a very bleak couple of years for me. A lot of times I doubted myself, even that I could get back to this level, so me making this team was the main thing,” he said.

“I made some huge changes in my life this past year to try to get back to this point.It will be a while to process this. I am big believer that you kind of get what you put in at some point. When I kept getting kicked when I was down, I just kept believing that at some point karma was going to come back and give me a bit of luck.

“I nearly got there, but for me this a gold - just getting on the start line in a championship final is a gold. I went in with a bit of freedom knowing whatever happened happened, and I am so relieved.”

Josh Kerr hobbles over the line 37 seconds back after injuring his calf with about 600m to go. Photograph: Martin Rickett/PA

And Kerr? Well, he hobbled over the line 37 seconds back after injuring his calf with about 600m to go. He had believed he was in the greatest shape of his life. Sadly we did not get a chance to see it. Kerr had been off the pace even before that, so it was not clear whether the humid conditions or a pre-existing problem had caused his injury.

• This report will be updated