Niels Laros: What makes him a favourite for Tokyo?
There is a short, pragmatic answer and a longer, technical one. Pragmatically: Laros arrives in Tokyo carrying momentum. Winners arrive with a different air. They run races with fewer doubts and they force rivals onto the back foot.
His Diamond League success, the mile victory in Eugene and the U23 double provide the kind of evidence selectors, bookmakers and opponents take seriously.
Technically, the case is more interesting. Laros combines bona fide 800m speed (he has dipped into the low-1:44s this season) with 5,000m endurance (13:10 on the ring road in Nice). That blend is ideal for modern championship 1500m racing, which routinely requires a fluid response to tactical variations: a slow, bunched, hard-kicking final; a relentlessly fast, gritted tempo; or something in between.
Laros’ training, he says, is a “mix of everything”: winter threshold work, summer VO2 and specific track sessions, a deliberate attempt to manufacture range rather than specialise too early. Those are his words to CITIUS Mag.
There is also the intangible of finishing speed. Laros’ last-lap kick has been compared, by observers, to the decisive sprints of established champions: he times his moves with a rare coldness for someone of his age and, more importantly, he looks relaxed doing it, a quality that, at championship level, costs you less energy across the rounds.