Former world champion is still full of motivation as he plots a route to championships success on home turf this summer.

While there will be echoes of the past everywhere he looks at this year’s major championships, Jake Wightman will be fully focused on the future as he tackles the coming outdoor season. 

He is currently to be found in Flagstaff, Arizona, honing his final preparations for a summer that will feature the Commonwealth Games at Glasgow’s Scotstoun Stadium and the European Championships at Birmingham’s Alexander Stadium – both venues he has raced in since some of his earliest days in the sport. 

The 31-year-old already has two Commonwealth 1500m bronze medals to his name – the most recent of those coming at the impressively remodelled West Midlands arena in 2022 – as well as European 1500m bronze and an 800m silver, the latter of which he also secured four years ago. 

That was, arguably, the professional summer of his life, peaking as it did with the world 1500m title he won in such spectacular fashion with a closing surge that left Jakob Ingebrigtsen trailing in his wake. 

The road Wightman has had to navigate since that moment in Oregon proved to be particularly rocky, with injury first cruelly robbing him of the chance to defend that title in Budapest in 2023 and then compete at the Paris Olympics a year later.

However, the Tokyo World Championships last September changed the negative narrative, as he came so close to another 1500m gold in Japan. That final, in which Isaac Nader’s searing finish just pipped him on the line, provided the Briton not just with “validation that I'm not finished yet” but renewed motivation to take every championships opportunity that comes his way. 

Wightman knows that he’s in the latter part of his career, and that those chances are not going to be infinite. So, with home crowds roaring him on and his feet on familiar ground, he will be doing his utmost to seize them in the coming months.

The Europeans will likely see him coming face to face with the likes of Nader over 1500m once again. Wightman has always been a championships animal and admits it’s the thrill of the race that continues to keep him coming back for more. 

“Especially being injured for a lot of the last few years, the thing I realised is that my job isn't to train,” he says. “That isn't what I get paid to do, or that I get supported to do. My job is to go out and perform at championships, so that's what you really want to do and you almost feel like a fraud when you're not able to do that. 

“I felt, not worthless, but it feels like you're almost robbing a living when you're not actually standing on the start lines of championships. The main reason why I got into the sport and enjoyed it in the first place was the racing element and I think, if you lose that, it's probably a sign that you're done. 

“I've always felt like there's more to prove – and at some point there won't be and I’ll feel like I've done everything I possibly can – but the thing that Tokyo last year gave me was the validation that I'm not finished yet, that I feel like I've looked after my body well enough over the years that I can probably have a few more left in me.”

This is a big year for Wightman for lots of reasons. Once the championships dust has settled he will marry his long-term partner and former professional athlete Georgie Hartigan, who has been instrumental in his success. He is also coached by his future father-in-law John and the trio have been working closely together to get him through the winter. 

“I just knuckle down and just carry on doing what I've done every other year,” says Wightman of his preparations. “I do think the hardest point is October, November. You go from being on this high… it was different, because I felt like, if I'd won in Tokyo, I'd have been a bit more like: ‘I'll just enjoy this and chill out’, whereas [with coming second] you still want to keep getting better and better.

"[I want to] win championships this year and that meant I had to get back on it and be motivated. I'm grateful that, at the age I'm at now, I am still motivated to want to train, race and go to these champs. I don't take for granted the seasons I have, so I need to make sure I do everything I possibly can to be as fit as I can.”

The Alexander Stadium is a thread that has woven its way through Wightman’s career, whether that be those 2022 Commonwealth Games, his regular tussles on the track at British Championships or events that go back to his early teens.

“I think I won a Young Athletes League Final there in 2008, which was a big deal at the time,” he says. “It's changed a lot. But then it also hasn't. The parking is in the same space, you're on the same road to get there and stuff like that – it's obviously just had a very good facelift. There's still that familiarity with it, which I think is a nice thing to come back to. If it could be like a home advantage that would be cool.”

And Wightman knows the help could come in handy. The men’s 1500m will be one of the standout events at the European Championships and it won’t just be Nader that will be keeping him occupied. Reigning European champion Ingebrigtsen is on the comeback trail, while young Dutchman Niels Laros will be planning to be a factor and fellow Scot Josh Kerr could also be in the mix. 

“It’s great,” says Wightman. “When I first started in the sport, the European medallists and European finalists weren't necessarily going to be the ones that were medalling at a World Champs or Olympic Games. But the way that the 1500m, especially in Europe, has progressed in the last five or 10 years means that now you're getting people that are going to be winning medals at Europeans that are all capable of winning and medalling at a World Champs. So it's a real test. 

“It's not an easy medal at all. But I know the drill now. You always go into a season trying to be as fit as you can, regardless of what champs are on the line. So I'm hoping that if these are going to be my last Europeans and Commonwealths, which potentially [they could be], it would be nice to go out on a high.”

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