Well, it has all turned sour now. A week after suggesting that Jakob Ingebrigtsen was a deserving athlete of the year, in part given the breakdown of his in-family coaching relationship, he has come out with something far harder hitting, sadly damaging and seemingly irreparable too.
In a statement issued along with his older brothers Henrik and Filip, both also formerly coached by their father Gjert, they claim this relationship was marred by “physical violence and threats”, and that they have “grown up with a father who has been very aggressive and controlling” – claims their father strenuously denies.
Their 750-word statement, published in the Norwegian newspaper VG, also asks for “peace, for all parties”, given the “inhumane” pressure it was putting on their running.
Gjert Ingebrigtsen responded to the statement via his lawyer, saying the claims of his three sons are “baseless”, and that he has “never used violence against my children”. He then added: “That I have had weaknesses as a father, and have been too much of a coach, is a realisation I have also come to, albeit far too late.
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“Our family has lived in the public spotlight for many years, and we have chosen to let the public into our lives through TV series, interviews and much more. That violence should have occurred in this public family life is unthinkable. How we are going to get past this I don’t know, but we have to try.”
That hardly looks possible now, at least as long as the Ingebrigtsen brothers are still running, given Gjert is currently coaching fellow Norwegian Narve Nordas, one of Jakob’s chief rivals over 1,500m.
[ Jakob Ingebrigtsen and brothers accuse father of violent and abusive behaviourOpens in new window ]
Even without knowing how much this “very aggressive and controlling” relationship came down to the fact their father was also their coach, with the mutual ambition of making his sons the best runners in the world, Gjert’s own realisation he had “been too much of a coach” seems telling.
It’s also a sad reminder of the perils of any in-family coaching relationship, whether that’s father-son, mother-daughter, husband-wife or any combination of these. There is no textbook or manual here. Why some of these in-family coaching relationships work just fine when many others don’t, is not clear.
Understanding something about this, having once had a short but cherished coaching relationship with my father, there are inevitably some additional challenges, especially if still living under the same roof. What is certain is if the relationship does break down there’s a higher price to pay.
It was February 2022 when Norway’s Stavanger Aftenblad first reported Gjert was stepping down from his role as coach to his three sons, all of whom he coached to European titles, due to medical reasons. It soon emerged this was due to a domestic conflict.
“Two years ago, the same aggression and physical punishment struck again,” the brothers now claim. They also add that their revelations “now hurts, in many ways ... it hurts because it affects a person who has meant a lot to us and our career.”
That’s a high price indeed, again for Jakob in particular, given his best running days are presumably still ahead of him.
Sebastian Coe certainly understands a lot about the father-son coaching dynamic. The only man to win two Olympic 1,500m titles was successfully coached his entire career by his father Peter. In his 2013 autobiography, Running My Life, he devotes an entire chapter to how they “fashioned a way of working together that was separate from our relationship as father as son”.
“Ours was never a conventional coach-athlete relationship,” Coe says, “it clearly couldn’t be. But in the end I believe it was something far greater. It was a partnership. Inevitably, there were fractious moments when we didn’t see eye to eye, but the stand-offs were always short-lived.
“Did the fact I was his son affect the way he coached me? In that he had a greater knowledge of me than is usually the case, then yes. But he never pulled rank as my father.”
Coincidentally another father-son relationship over 1,500m has also worked out well. Geoff Wightman is still coaching his son Jake, who ended Britain’s long wait for a global title when beating Jakob Ingebrigtsen at the world championships in Oregon last year.
For others – and for whatever reasons – the option was taken to outsource the coaching, so to speak, including Sonia O’Sullivan and her daughter Sophie. Currently coached by Mauricia Powell, at the University of Washington in Seattle, the now 21-year-old made significant strides on the track this summer, winning the European Under-23 1,500m title, and has already qualified for the next year’s Paris Olympics.
But there is fresh evidence of the potential damage when in-family coaching relationships don’t work out with the case of Italian high jumper Gianmarco Tamberi and his father Marco, also a national record holder in the event, who competed in 1980 Olympics in Moscow.
They successfully worked together from when Tamberi first showed his promise, winning European Under-20 bronze back in 2010, before their relationship started to crack not long after Tamberi shared the Tokyo Olympics title (along with Mutaz Barshim from Qatar) in 2021.
Just days before last summer’s world championships in Oregon, where he ended up fourth, Tamberi effectively fired his father, claiming “their great results have alternated equally with great differences” and they’ve hardly spoken since.
At the world championships in Budapest this summer, Tamberi won the gold medal, flamboyantly so as ever, and was deeply emotional afterwards when saying: “My father taught me how to jump, I owe everything I’ve accomplished to him, it was difficult to let him go ... there’s little doubt that this medal is a direct result of what he taught me.”
Other sports are no different when it comes to the complexities of in-family coaching relationships. It’s why in tennis they’ve made so many compelling documentaries about the Williams sisters and the challenges they faced with their father and coach Richard.
There is something particularly sad about the breakdown of the Ingebrigtsen family. After Jakob’s success in Tokyo we witnessed a charming moment with his father Gjert that became the high point of the last season of Team Ingebrigtsen, the family reality show which had run since 2016 on Norwegian TV.
We now know a part of that celebration wasn’t real at all.
