Jakob Ingebrigtsen is one of those European runners who you can trust if it’s a run-or-die competition; the man can not only run 3000 meters like it’s nothing but also has that power in his legs to break the world record and win the European indoors within 30 days; making the fans go crazy. Such dominance has only been challenged by one athlete—someone who has made the Norwegian runner run extra hard at the 2024 European Athletics Championships and the 2025 European Indoors. The same athlete who won’t be chasing the two-time Olympic champion at World Indoors.
British track and field athlete George Mills took to Instagram on March 15, 2025, to announce that he had “picked up a virus after Euros and have been bed-bound for the last few days.” Following this, the European indoor silver medalist has decided to “withdraw from world indoors next week” something that he was looking up to and felt was his “first opportunity to really mix it on the world level.”
But as much as the man wants to be in the World Athletics Indoor Championship, which is to take place in Nanjing from March 21 to 25, he has to focus on the long-term goals. The post had pictures of Mills with tissues up his nose and he further wrote, “As much as I want to travel, put myself on the start line and just try, I have to listen to my team and respect our long term goals.” When you look at the post and see him getting only about two hours of sleep, it only makes sense that he recovers first.
On when he’d be back on track, he said, “I’ll take some time to let the body fully recover before heading back to Dullstroom later this month to prepare for the outdoor season,” Dullstroom is known for being a high-altitude training camp destination mainly for middle and long-distance runners, so we can be sure that the Brit will be steady and quick when the track goes to the outdoor. But Jakob is sure to miss some fierce competition in the world indoors.
Mills finished second to Ingebrigtsen in the men’s 5000-meter final at the 2024 European Athletics Championships, missing the gold by only 1.27 seconds over the Olympic champion’s 13:20.11. This kind of competition was repeated at the 2025 European Indoor Championships.
The fastest time this year counts when Jakob Ingebrigtsen is in the field per George Mills
Mills was having a great season this year, in February he broke new ground in the 3000 meters at the Meeting de l’Eure in Val-de-Reuil (7:27.92) to move to ninth on the world all-time list, breaking the outright British record of 7:30.14 set by reigning world 1500 meter champion Josh Kerr indoors in New York last year. In the 2025 European Indoor Championships held in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands from 6 to 9 March 2025, he had an exceptional performance as well.
In the post-meet press conference after the European indoors, he said he “had the fastest time this year, but I don’t think that really counts when Jakob’s in the field.” But why was that? Well, because the Olympian who had just broken two world records at the World Indoor Tour Gold meeting in Lievin, France, also took the victory in the European indoors.
Mills, said he wanted to “push him (Jakob) as far as I could. I wasn’t quite able to do that today”. But he was still happy to win the silver as his plan to crank it up when there were only four to five laps to go, stating, “If I pushed hard enough, I could break the majority of the field.” was quite successful because “obviously it’s a different situation with Jakob.”
But the man believed that this would take them to the win and finish as high up as possible and he did. He might have again put himself through this strategy in the world indoors, but destiny had its plan. Would he have once again claimed silver in China? Were there any possibilities of gold with Ingebrigtsen on the track? Let us know in the comments down below.
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