Portuguese runner out-kicks Jake Wightman as favourite Niels Laros crumbles and Josh Kerr pulls up injured.

Once again the men’s 1500m at a global championships delivered. The event is, as Seb Coe would say, the gift that keeps giving.

During just over three-and-half thrilling minutes late on Wednesday (Sept 17) in Tokyo, we saw reigning champion Josh Kerr limping around the track as he glimpsed his title slipping away in front of his eyes.

There was the sight of Jake Wightman, rounding into the home straight like a man possessed, seemingly timing his fearsome kick to perfection with the bold target of completing an amazing comeback from injuries.

Then there was Niels Laros, the favourite for gold, seemingly overwhelmed by the big occasion as he led for the early stages and then found to his horror that his usual strong finish had inexplicably taken the night off.

Most of all, there was the sight of Isaac Nader, charging to glory in the final metres to overtake Wightman as the Briton lunged desperately over the finish line as he fell on to the track.

Nader's time? A modest 3:34.10 as Wightman finished an agonising two hundredths of a second behind with Reynold Cheruiyot of Kenya taking bronze in 3:34.25 as Timothy Cheruiyot was fourth, Laros fifth and Robert Farken of Germany sixth. Not quite at his best this summer, Neil Gourley wound up 10th.

This was the 26-year-old from Portugal’s night. The absence of the past two Olympic champions – Cole Hocker and Jakob Ingebrigtsen – plus Azeddine Habz, Phanuel Koech and Yared Nuguse, opened this race up. And Nader took his chance.

Not that this was a soft line-up. Anything but.

Laros has been in brilliant form lately, with Kerr also confident of defending his crown. Wightman was back to his best. Almost everyone in the field was dangerous and probably felt they had a chance of winning a medal.

Before the race, Laros was an odds-on favourite with one betting firm, with Nader only 28/1 and, remarkably, the seventh favourite. Anyone who had the foresight to place a few euros on him will be smiling right now.

"In the last 100m I fully believed in myself," said Nader. "I knew Jake would be fighting until the end so I went all in for a dive. This was probably the first time I did it in my career but I couldn't risk losing a world title. Clearly, it paid off in the end."

"I couldn't have done anything else," admitted Wightman, as magnanimous in defeat as always.

"I did not see what was happening in the race, I was fully focused on my own race, the last 200m, and I was just trying to win it so badly," Wightman added. "To get that close, it is bittersweet. But I am glad to come out with something.

"I was not betting on Nader. I thought if someone was going to go, it would be Laros. But fair play to Nader - he ran a very very good race. Compared to my race three years ago [2022 in Eugene], that was more tactical and it more predictable. You could set up the plan around what Jakob was going to do, whereas this one no one knew what was going to happen.

"To be able to come through like that and perform on this stage was really special. You just race who is there, so I tried to beat whoever I could. It is never easy."

Nader joins the likes of Carlos Lopes, Rosa Mota and fellow miler Rui Silva in the Portuguese endurance running hall of fame.

His previous best performances at major championships include bronze in the European Indoors this year, whereas he has finished just outside the medals at the World Indoors.

Last year Nader was eighth in his Olympic 1500m semi-final in Paris and 10th in the European final in Rome.

At the last World Championships in Budapest in 2023, he was 12th and last – six seconds behind gold medallist Kerr.

This year he has found his form, though, setting Portuguese records of 1:43.86 for 800m, 3:29.37 for 1500m and 3:48.25 for the mile. Still, he wasn’t seriously considered by many to win here in Tokyo and, indeed, was only 10th in the Diamond League final last month.

Nader, however, insisted post-race that he was not surprised to win in Tokyo.

The race began at a slow pace with no one seemingly wanting to lead. Laros seemed a reluctant front runner but he led through 400m in a mere 59 seconds, the kind of pace Roger Bannister was able to handle on cinders 61 years ago.

There was, of course, no Ingebrigtsen to naturally push the pace from the start. Timothy Cheruiyot, too, is not quite as keen these days to force the pace as he was during his 2019 world championship-winning zenith.

With around 700 metres to go the most notable incident of the race took place when Kerr, who was boxed and not brilliantly positioned, pulled up sharply and started limping.

For a few surreal seconds he continued to limp at the back of the field and wasn’t losing too much ground as he attempted to get going again. He was fighting a losing battle, though, eventually staggering home in 4:11.23.

Kerr had injured his calf slightly when tripping in the semi-final and then it blew up early in the final. So why did he carry on? "It's my job," he later smiled ruefully.

Up ahead, Wightman made a dramatic move to the front with 200m to go as he overtook leader Timothy Cheryuiot – reminiscent of his charge past Ingebrigtsen to win the world title in Eugene in 2022.

Laros and, indeed everyone else, looked beaten. But then came Nader with a late surge, from fifth place with 150m to go and timing his charge to perfection like a Derby day winner at Ascot. He took just 12.3 seconds to cover the final 100m, compared to Wightman's 12.9.

"I have no words for what happened, but I believed in myself and so did my family and girlfriend [Portuguese international runner Salome Afonso]," said Nader, who was born in Faro to a Portuguese mother and Moroccan father. "In fact, the two of us are our own training group. We are together 24/7 and she is at every session, even more than my coach because he doesn't go to every altitude training camp. Having this group believing in me and supporting me is what really matters.

"Some people criticised me and said I would never achieve this but here I am – world champion and the first Portuguese man to win a global gold in the 1500m. Unfortunately I wasn't able to hear the Portuguese team cheering for me because the crowd here is so loud."

With the season due to end, the anticipation will now start to build for more supermiler showdowns in 2026 at the European Championships in Birmingham and Ultimate Championships in Budapest.

We are also, of course, only three years away from the next Olympics.

"This is just one of my dreams accomplished, the other will have to wait until 2028," said Nader, looking ahead. "Winning gold in Los Angeles isn't a promise, simply a dream. Next year I will go into the European Championships in Birmingham as the world champion – and for the world championships the year after (Beijing, 2027), so I will pace myself and take each event as it comes."