Jake Wightman revisits future plans after seeing light at the end of the tunnel in Tokyo

Athletics 14 Nov 25

There was a time when Jake Wightman thought a pair of home Championships in 2026 would be the perfect way to sign off his athletics career. But everything changed in Tokyo.

There was a time when Jake Wightman thought a pair of home Championships in 2026 would be the perfect way to sign off his athletics career. But everything changed in Tokyo.

The 2022 world 1500m champion had endured two years of hell in the aftermath of his Eugene success, watching on from the BBC punditry sofa as Josh Kerr followed in his footsteps in Budapest in 2023, before having his Olympic ambitions quashed at the last by injury 12 months later.

Even the pragmatic Wightman started to wonder what he had done to upset the injury gods, especially when this year saw him undergo meniscus surgery before missing the British Trials with a stomach bug.

The most frustrating aspect for the 31-year-old was that he was putting in the miles in training and knew that the form that carried him to glory three years ago was still there – he just needed a chance to show it.

Thankfully that moment came in September when Wightman claimed a dramatic silver at the Worlds in Tokyo, pipped on the line by two hundredths of a second by Portugal’s Isaac Nader, but back on a global podium in his first major competition in three years.

It brought with it a mixture of relief and validation, as well as a conviction that 2026 – with the European Championships in Birmingham and Commonwealth Games in Glasgow – would be no farewell tour.

Wightman said: “During the years previously which hadn’t been very pleasant, I’d insisted that I could get back to that.

“The word I have used is probably that it’s rewarding and reassuring that I wasn’t pursuing something that wasn’t going to happen.

“I still believed that I could be as good as I was and I still am, I’m glad to prove that to myself and other people. It’s not just been me who has to persist with the bad and the injuries, there are other people who have to go through it with you.

“Even if you are the most mentally resilient athlete, two years of not racing at a Champs and having these injuries that strike you down at the wrong points, you’re going to have your confidence knocked. I don’t think I’ve ever had a year with as much self-doubt as this year.

“I kept telling myself I wanted to be ready in September. As soon as I went through the rounds in Tokyo I felt good. The first time I felt myself was at those Worlds.

“It has given me the momentum to carry on for the rest of this cycle. I originally said that if I got through to 2026, that would be a nice career, but there is no way that I can have that now. It’s definitely going to be LA or beyond.”

Should Wightman make it to Los Angeles with Team GB, it would give him a chance at scratching the biggest itch that remains of his athletics career.

Wightman missed out on selection for Rio before competing in front of an empty stadium in his only previous Olympic appearance in Tokyo, making it to the final of the 1500m in Japan.

Beset by injury, he was set to compete over 800m in Paris last summer only for a hamstring issue to force him out on the eve of the Games.

He added: “The only thing that could top the 2022 title was winning the Olympics. I don’t even think an Olympic silver would outdo a Worlds gold.

“There is only one thing better and I haven’t given myself a chance to do that since winning Worlds. I’m not putting pressure on it because you don’t know what is going to happen. I’ll do everything I can to get there and be in the best shape possible.

“At the moment my only experience of the Olympics was the Covid one in Tokyo.

“I feel like I’ve done two half Olympics. I got picked for one and didn’t turn up and I got to go to one which was not the experience you expected. I hope I’ve got a proper one coming up at one point.”

Before then is a packed 2026, with the aforementioned home champs, as well as a wedding in Scotland at the end of the year.

Wightman is the first to admit that he is having to leave a lot of the planning to fiancée Georgie as his focus remains on competition.

The wedding will be a special day for both his current and former coach, with Wightman’s training now overseen by his future father-in-law John Hartigan, who took over from his dad Geoff Wightman, who had guided his career to that point.

Taking the decision to split from his dad was a big call for Wightman, who acknowledges the tricky family dynamic for his old man.

Geoff had famously been on stadium commentary when his son won gold in Eugene, and was doing so again in Tokyo before making his way down to the stadium press area to congratulate his son.

Speaking of the coaching change which saw him move up to Manchester, Jake said: “It was probably the final thing I needed to do, not that it is the best thing I’ve ever done because it was horrible.

“I still feel pretty guilty for it. But it was a point in my career where I needed a bit of a different approach and I felt that was probably going to come from somebody else overseeing that.

“It’s validating, that was the thing I felt. It would have been a bit tough if it hadn’t all paid off because you have moved your family completely.

“Being coached by my future father-in-law is probably a tougher dynamic than I realised, for everyone.

“I would never say my dad wasn’t the best person to have coached me because he was, it was just not the right thing at this point.

“I’ve probably not really spoken to him much about it but it can’t have been that easy watching me run well under somebody else when that has been him for the last 15 years, especially when he was there.

“I hope that he is able to celebrate any success I have in the future because he has built the foundations and made me into the athlete I am, even if somebody else is now overseeing stuff and carrying on.”

The hope is that those successes begin in 2026 and continue all the way back to America.

After two partial Olympic experiences, Wightman has earned a proper go at it in LA.

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