Portugal’s Isaac Nader upstaged the bigger names of the men’s 1500m for a surprise gold at the World Athletics Championships Tokyo 25 after Josh Kerr hobbled over the line and Niels Laros failed to deliver his trademark kick in the home straight.

In what was a relatively slow final in contrast to the past two editions, the candidates for gold appeared wide open. But, even with that in mind, the man from the Algarve was not many people’s pick for the victory.

He had been a winner of the Oslo Diamond League this season and had delivered a series of top-five finishes but yet it looked set to be a race between past champions and the event’s rising star in Laros.

The 14-man field consisted of three former world champions with the last two in Kerr and Jake Wightman, back from a two-year injury nightmare, as well Timothy Cheruiyot, a gold medallist in Doha in 2019.

It was also a line-up notable for its absentees, Jakob Ingebrigtsen, Olympic champion inside this same stadium in Tokyo, after his own injury problems this season and his successor in Paris, Cole Hocker, who was disqualified for barging his way past his rivals in the home straight in the semi-finals.

Hocker had been a surprise winner last summer and it was a shock again, albeit with a different winner.

In the build-up to the final, defending champion Kerr had warned his rivals to prepare for “a real battle for whoever wants to come and take it off me”. And despite looking relaxed and all smiles on the start line, as it transpired, the biggest battle was from within as his body appeared to fail him with a lap and a half to go.

He had opted against taking up the tempo at the front of the field – perhaps an indication he wasn’t fully fit prior to the final itself – and then he started hopping and grimacing. He gainfully kept going to the line but was more than half a minute behind the 13th-placed finisher.

It was Wightman on the final turn who kicked for the lead and it had all the makings of Laros’s sprint kicking in as it did in Brussels and Zurich.

For a time, Wightman looked on the precipice of a second world title only for Nader to time his sprint to the line to perfection and pip his British rival for gold by just two hundredths of a second. The winning time of 3:34.10 was some five seconds slower than the last two iterations of the 1500m final at the World Championships.

Wightman, as he had been in Oregon, once again had his race commentated on inside the National Stadium by his dad Geoff, his coach until this season before relocating from London to Manchester in his quest to get his running career on track.

There was an element of surprise that Laros’s fast finish failed to materialise, the inexperienced 20-year-old who had been bidding to become the youngest ever world champion in the men’s event.

But he was beaten by two Cheruiyots, Reynold edging out Kenyan teammate Timothy (no relation) to take the bronze with Laros back in fifth spot.

Matt Majendie for World Athletics