Spencer calls Ingebrigtsen a sore loser after Fifth Avenue Mile

The Fifth Avenue Mile was run on Sunday. The interviews afterward were about Jakob Ingebrigtsen.

Adam Spencer, third in 3:46, was asked by CITIUS MAG about the conflict between Ingebrigtsen and Cole Hocker and did not hedge. He said Ingebrigtsen was a bit of a sore loser, and that if Ingebrigtsen had won the race in question, he would not have had any issues with it. Spencer allowed that emotions run high straight after a race.

Marco Langon, who won the men's race in 3:45.0 on his Fifth Avenue debut, went the other way and put it on Hocker. Told about the drama, Langon said Hocker got checked and did nothing about it, and that if you are about it you go say something back. "So it is what it is," he added.

Olli Hoare got the same subject in his own CITIUS MAG interview, asked specifically about Ingebrigtsen's "coward" comments. Hoare also had a hardware problem on the day. He raced the mile in marathon shoes, which LetsRun flagged in its race report alongside Jemma Reekie's win and Elise Cranny's plans.

What it actually means

Nothing here has been ruled on by anybody. No official, no federation, no referee has looked at the incident between Ingebrigtsen and Hocker and issued a finding. This is athletes answering questions in a mixed zone, and it has become the default question at every road mile microphone. The milers are lining up, and so far they are lining up away from Ingebrigtsen.

For context on the race itself, Reekie broke the women's course record, which we covered earlier. Ingebrigtsen's "coward" line came from Brussels, where he described the 1500m field as a bunch of cowards after Cam Myers won, covered earlier.

Langon, for his part, would rather talk about the clock. He said his goal for the summer was breaking 3:30 in the 1500m and that he is within about two seconds of it, two seconds he thinks come from being in lane one. He also described Fifth Avenue as a 5K race at the end of the day, uphill then straight downhill, closer to cross country than anything else on the circuit. He trains with Myers and has done for about two years.