Yared Nuguse: Olympic 1500m medallist chasing golds before return to dental school

Nuguse beat defending champion Ingebrigtsen and finished within 0.15 seconds of gold in a dramatic Paris final, in which Cole Hocker squeezed past Britain’s world champion Kerr to win in an Olympic record time.

The event’s current heavyweights represent four of the nine fastest men in history over the distance, but Nuguse is the only one yet to get his hands on gold.

He believes this year’s World Championships in Tokyo will provide his crowning moment.

“You’re really happy and proud of yourself but, at the same time, you’re still yearning for more,” says Nuguse, who broke the indoor mile world record in February only to see Ingebrigtsen beat it five days later.

“I know I can win these races, I was right there with them. It’s just a matter of doing literally that last 1%, or 0.1%.

“It just feels like it’s my time. I can taste it, I’m so close.”

Before aiming for his first global title in September, Nuguse will compete in the inaugural season of Michael Johnson’s Grand Slam Track, which begins in Kingston, Jamaica on Friday.

As a contracted racer, he will line up against fellow Olympic medallists Hocker and Kerr over 800m and 1500m at four ‘slams’, with a total prize pot of $12.6m (£10m) on offer to athletes, in addition to a base salary.

However, Johnson’s controversial decision to exclude field events from the competition has been criticised.

“I’m very excited. It’s shaping up to be something really cool and really fun,” says Nuguse.

“Track doesn’t really have this pinnacle league like a lot of other sports do and it’s largely because our sport is so different to a lot of traditional sports.

“It would be nice for track athletes to be treated like athletes in other professional sports, especially at the top level.

“I think it’s definitely a good shot at making something that could last and promote more of a professional league. I’m very interested to see how it’s received but [Johnson] seems to be doing everything right.”