{"id":1827,"date":"2018-11-22T09:39:00","date_gmt":"2018-11-22T09:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/evan-jagers-tragic-fall-in-paris\/"},"modified":"2018-11-22T09:39:00","modified_gmt":"2018-11-22T09:39:00","slug":"evan-jagers-tragic-fall-in-paris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/evan-jagers-tragic-fall-in-paris\/","title":{"rendered":"Evan Jager&#8217;s Tragic Fall in Paris"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The eight minute mark is something of a holy grail for 3000m steeplechasers, and Jager had been making eyes at it for some time, having clocked 8:04.71 at the Diamond League Final in Brussels the year before and 8:05.28 in a non-scoring event at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene earlier that summer.<\/p>\n<p>In Paris, he came up against a strong field, including an up and coming Conseslus Kipruto and standings leader Jairus Birech, who had picked up two wins and a second place in his three Diamond League appearances in 2015.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Jager, determined to not only take victory but also break that all important barrier, got away quickly, and held Birech off for much of the race.<\/p>\n<p>As he turned into the home straight, he looked certain to break eight minutes, the clock ticking on to 7.47 minutes as he went over the last barrier.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><div class=\"lazyload smush-lazyload-video smush-lazyload-youtube\" style=\"--smush-video-aspect-ratio: 640\/360\" data-bg-image=\"url(https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-admin\/admin-ajax.php?action=smush_video_thumbnail&#038;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fembed%2Feb4UY3ey4gc&#038;video_width=640&#038;video_height=360)\" ><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/eb4UY3ey4gc\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\"><\/iframe><span class=\"smush-play-btn\" role=\"button\" aria-label=\"Play video\">\r\n\t\t\t\t<span tabindex=\"0\" class=\"smush-play-btn-inner\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\t<span>Play<\/span>\r\n\t\t\t\t<\/span>\r\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/div><\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately for the American, that last hurdle was one too many. Jager&#8217;s trailing foot clipped the barrier by a whisker, and he briefly lost his footing as he landed, tumbling forward on to the track.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Birech was away, and would take victory in a sub-8-minute time, but all eyes were on Jager, as he recovered quickly and burst away towards the finish. Even his last drops of energy weren&#8217;t enough, and the USATF star hung his head in anguish as the clock showed 8:00.45 at the finish line. He had missed his mark by less than half a second.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>It may have been an American record, and one that is still standing today, but as records go, it is a bittersweet one for Jager, the Diamond League&#8217;s ultimate tragic hero.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Back in 2015, Paris played host to one of the most heartrending moments in Diamond League...","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1828,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[219,488,490,493,6,489,438,491,220,492,487],"city":[],"class_list":["post-1827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-3000m","tag-8-minutes","tag-8m","tag-barrie","tag-diamond-league","tag-eight-minutes","tag-evan-jager","tag-fall","tag-steeplechase","tag-tumble","tag-usat"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1827"},{"taxonomy":"city","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/city?post=1827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}