“I feel good about everything,” Jager said. “I think there's a lot of things that went into the decision. One, moving to Sweden changed things a lot. We moved here a year ago. I did a lot on my own last year, which I guess doesn't really play a huge role in the decision, but timing-wise there were a lot of changes happening. It almost makes the decision easier. I'm getting old for track and field and I've been thinking about it for a while. The end of my career wasn't going the way that the start of my career or the middle of my career went, so it's always been on the back of my mind for the last few years.

“Because I'm very happy with how my career went, it made the decision easy. Realizing that I'm not in the mix for making teams anymore, I didn't want to keep running just to try to make USAs year in, year out. I felt good about everything and it felt like the right time.”

Jager’s retirement closes the book on one of the most storied careers in American distance running history. He was a prep star out of Algonquin, Illinois, and left the University of Wisconsin after one year to follow coach Jerry Schumacher’s upstart professional group in Portland. By 23, he had already made a World Championship team in the 5000 meters. At 24, he reinvented himself over barriers to quickly become America’s best steeplechasers. During his 2012 season, he won the U.S. Olympic Trials, broke the American record, and then went on to finish sixth at the London Olympics.

Over the next five years, Jager became the epitome of American excellence in the steeple. He nearly broke eight minutes in 2015 and lowered the U.S. record to 8:00.45 despite falling over the final barrier in Paris. He admits that he still replays that race in his head frequently.

“I think about that race pretty regularly. Definitely more than once a month,” he reflected. “Honestly, it's something that's going to haunt me for the rest of my life. I've been thinking about this a little bit the last few months. I really do think this is the race that I'm most proud of. If you just subtract a centimeter, it would have been an all-time athletic performance for myself. I think I pushed myself to the absolute limit.”

Jager earned a silver medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics, making him the first American medalist in the men’s steeplechase in 28 years. In 2017, he added a World bronze in London after leading much of the race. That same season, he recorded the first and only Diamond League victory of his career, running 8:01.29 in Monaco.

But the latter half of Jager’s career was shaped more by resilience than by medals. A 2018 stress fracture wiped out his 2019 season and for nearly four years, he struggled to stay healthy. He missed the 2021 U.S. Olympic Trials and the Tokyo Olympics. He wondered, at times, if he would ever finish another steeplechase.

Yet in 2022, he clawed his way back to fitness and onto another U.S. team, then finished sixth at the World Championships in Oregon, the state where he’d been based for most of his pro career. It was an emotional return that felt like a victory in itself.

As he attempted to continue his comeback at the 2024 Paris Olympics, Jager struggled with injuries but rounded into form to finish fourth at the U.S. Olympic Trials—one place short of making his third U.S. Olympic team. He raced for one more season in 2025 but did not make it out of the preliminary round of the U.S. Championships.

“I was kind of riddled with injuries the last stretch of my career, which is unfortunate,” Jager reflected. “I think I almost proved too much to myself in 2022 that I could fight through a really tough period of my career, fight through injuries, come out on the other side and have success. It was almost too much proof to stop right there. I gave myself even more belief going into the 2023 and 2024 seasons. I still don’t have any regrets going for it again.”

Jager finishes his career holding nine of the 10 fastest all-time 3000m steeplechase marks in U.S. history, including the seven fastest times.

His records and medals will ensure his spot in the pantheon of American track and field royalty, but Jager’s legacy will be defined just as much by the doggedness he displayed in the face of frequent setbacks. It takes a tremendous amount of humility, bravery, and belief to make a return to world-class racing possible, and Evan Jager’s journey was full of all three.