Jacobs grad Evan Jager ready to get back to Olympic steeplechase

Evan Jager recently traveled to Flagstaff, Arizona, with other male members of the Bowerman Track Club for high-altitude training.

The idea is that the BTC group, coached by Jerry Schumacher and supported by Nike, will train for nine weeks in higher altitude, which will then enhance the runners’ fitness when they are back running on sea level.

It is part of Jager’s training for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, France, which he admits might be his last Olympics competition.

Jager, who will be 35 in March, is a 2007 Jacobs graduate and the greatest 3,000-meter steeplechaser in U.S. history. He has battled various injuries since taking the 2016 Olympics silver medal in Rio de Janeiro but hopes his body will cooperate so that he might compete this year and again in the 2028 Olympics, which will be in Los Angeles.

“It could be [my last Olympics],” Jager said. “Jerry has changed his training philosophy this year. Our training regimen is a lot different than what we’ve done in the past, and it could be really beneficial for me. As an older athlete it’s a lot less intense workouts and more manageable workouts, but more of them. You’re getting in a different stimulus, and it’s been working really well for me so far.

“If things don’t go well this year, I could see this being my last time trying to make the Olympics. If things go super well, and I finish the year feeling like I have more left, then I might reassess and see where things go from there. I’m not making up my mind one way or another, just trying to focus on this year. I’m not making any long-term decisions.”

I feel really good, I feel healthy. I feel pretty fit, I’m excited for the year.”

—  Evan Jager, Jacobs graduate and U.S. Olympian

The 2020 Tokyo Olympics were pushed back a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, then Jager missed the 2021 games with a left Achilles injury. He returned for the World Track and Field Championships in 2022 [pushed back a year by the Olympics] and took sixth, but missed the Worlds last year.

Jager is healthy now, having several months of solid training, and looking forward to getting back on the world stage.

Jager did a lot of work on his own through the late summer and fall months since he was recovering from an injury.

“I feel really good,” he said. “I trained by myself all fall so I could work at my own pace and kind of do whatever I needed to do to get back into shape. It helped a lot. Generally, coming off of an injury it’s easy to get wrapped up in what the rest of the team is doing and try to keep up with the guys. Sometimes that helps get you back into shape quick, and sometimes it’s a little too much.

“I just wanted to focus on doing the right thing for me. I worked out by myself all fall. It was super helpful being able to do things in the right way for me. I feel really good, I feel healthy. I feel pretty fit, I’m excited for the year.”

Jager and his wife Sofia live near Portland, Oregon, with their 16-month-old daughter Lovrisa. Sofia is a marketing consultant for a construction company.

Jager wants to see where he is fitness-wise, then arrange his schedule to get ready for the U.S. Trials from June 21-30 at the University of Oregon’s Hayward Field in Eugene. In Flagstaff, the runners do their regular workouts, but the elevation pushes their bodies harder.

“You’re just generally more tired throughout the day because there’s so much external stimulus, the altitude kind of takes its toll on your body,” Jager said. “You’re more tired all the time, and workouts feel harder because you’re running them at altitude. It’s quite a big harder.

Over the course of a month it starts getting easier and feeling a lot more normal. But for the first three weeks, it’s pretty rough. After those three weeks, you get a bit more adjusted and things feel better.”

Jager is uncertain how many races he will need to prepare for the trials.

“If I’m superfit coming out of this camp and can hit the Olympic standard in my first race, then I might only do two races before the trials,” he said. “If it takes a little longer to get there, I might do a couple more and use those races to get into better shape. It’s super fluid, and you have to be ready to make changes with how the season is progressing. Ideally, I’d like to do three races before the trials, it could be more and it could be less.”

Schumacher was Wisconsin’s cross country and distance coach when he recruited Jager out of high school. Schumacher was hired by Nike after Jager’s freshman year and invited Jager to join him in Oregon as a professional runner.

Jager turned to the steeplechase, a race with 28 barriers and seven water jumps, sometime around 2011 and made it to the 2012 London Olympics, where he finished sixth.

Jager was a natural for the race and has run it 8 seconds faster than any other American in history. His best time, 8:00.45, came in a Diamond League race in Paris in July 2015. He would have broken 8:00, but he fell after the last barrier.

Perhaps Paris can bring out the best in Jager again this summer. The Olympics are set for July 26 through Aug. 11.

Jager hopes this is not his last dance.

“If I feel really good and healthy through this year and have good fitness and still feel competitive in the races I’m running and feel like I have more to give, then I could see myself wanting to run for a few more years,” Jager said. “And with the 2028 Olympics in L.A., that’s a nice little carrot dangling there. I would have to consider that if things go really, really well.

“But if I have another year where I end up pushing my body really hard and wind up with another injury, I’m not going to want to keep doing the same thing, where I keep getting injured and injured. A lot depends on how things go this year.”