Evan Jager made his long-awaited return to racing at the UW Invitational in Seattle on Saturday, the 30-year-old’s first race in 18 months.
It was a winning return for the 2016 Olympic silver medalist, who had been ruled out in 2019 through chronic injury. Jager clocked 3:56.50 to win the men’s mile and he led home fellow Kimbia and Bowerman Track Club athlete Sean McGorty, who ran 3:57.19 in second.
Image: Cortney White
With his injury woes behind him, Evan Jager is all set to get back on track this season. The 30-year-old has not raced since August 2018 after struggling with a chronic foot injury last year but he is feeling optimistic as the Olympics in Tokyo start to loom into view.
During his January training camp at the US Olympic Training Center in Colorado, he resumed hurdling for the first time in 17 months. Late last summer he told the Northwest Herald: “Ideally, I would have been healthy and run at USA’s and tried to make the team and run at Worlds but my body was just not cooperating. I felt the smarter thing to do was focus on getting healthy and making sure I was ready for next year.”
In a post on Instagram last week, he noted:
“I hurdled for the first time since August 2018 and damn did it feel good! After sustaining a foot injury at the end of the 2018 season recovery has been an incredibly up and down road. 2019 was a really hard year for me mentally, physically and emotionally and I have had a certain amount of doubt as to whether or not I was ever going to be able to Steeple again. I always believed that I would but that doubt was always creeping in the back of my mind.
”Today was exactly what I needed to prove to myself that I would get back to being the athlete I knew I could be. Being able to hurdle might not be the biggest accomplishment but this year I’m trying to celebrate the little victories and not be so hard on myself when things don’t go exactly to plan.
”Anyways I’m happy and F@#&ING amped for this year!”
Evan Jager produced another fine performance to take third place at the Diamond League final in Zurich on Thursday night, the Bowerman Track Club athlete clocking 8:13.22 to come home third behind world and Olympic champion Conseslus Kipruto of Kenya and Morocco’s Soufiane El Bakkali.
Jager had not raced since last month, when he clocked a season’s best of 8:01.02 to finish second in Monaco, but there was no rust prevalent when he took to the track in the Letzigrund Stadium to face the world’s best.
Jager moved into position to strike on the final lap but didn’t quite have the gears to match Kipruto and El Bakkali, with Kipruto sprinting to victory in 8:10.15 to take the Diamond League title for 2019.
Evan Jager made another brave attempt at the eight-minute barrier at the Monaco Diamond League on Friday, July 20, the Bowerman Track Club athlete coming home second in the 3000m steeplechase in 8:01.02. The race was won by Morocco’s Soufiane El Bakkali in 7:58.15.
Evan Jager secured his seventh consecutive US title in the 3000m steeplechase with a peerless display on the final day of action in Des Moines, Iowa, on Sunday.
Jager unleashed a sub-60-second final lap to win in a stadium record of 8:20.10, well clear of Hillary Bor (8:22.58) and Andy Bayer (8:24.66).
The biggest threat to Jager came not from his rivals but from the weather, with a thunderstorm halting action in Des Moines for a couple of hours shortly before he was due to take to the line. However, Jager explained afterward that the disruption had little effect on him.
“I was ready to go at 1 [a.m], 2 [a.m.], whenever, it didn’t matter,” he said. “If they wanted to bring us back tomorrow that was fine with me. I would have run whenever.”
The mid-race pace was steady, well below Jager’s usual tempo, but then the Bowerman Track Club athlete cranked through the gears, dropping a 62-second penultimate lap before his 59.68-second closer to take a magnificent seventh straight title. He will now turn his attention to a sub-8-minute clocking in Monaco nexth month.
“If it’s super fast I’m excited to test myself and see how fast I can run, see how long I can hold on. If it’s 7:55, it’s 7:55. If it’s 8 flat, it’s 8 flat. I might as well push it,” he told Letsrun.com.
More from Jager below:
Evan Jager made an impressive 2018 steeplechase debut when finishing third at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene on Saturday, the Bowerman Track Club athlete in a photo finish with Olympic champion Conseslus Kipruto, both athletes credited with the same time of 8:11.71.
The race was won by Kenya’s Benjamin Kigen in 8:09.07.
“I felt pretty good," said Jager. I felt like I was in a great rhythm. I was focusing on staying relaxed and Jerry [Schumacher] gave me the green light to do what I wanted. I didn’t want to make a move today and instead see what I could do over the last 200. I probably could have been a little more aggressive.”
Jager will now turn his attention to the US Championships before focusing on a tilt at the eight-minute barrier in Monaco in July.
