Sport feeds on rivalries and one of Britain’s best bets for Olympic gold is already a few skirmishes into the phoney war. Josh Kerr’s mesmerising 1,500m defeat of Jakob Ingebrigtsen at last year’s World Championships opened wounds and the bad blood flowed. It escalated in February, when Norway’s Olympic champion suggested he could beat his rival while wearing a blindfold. The gloves, at least, are off.
With Ingebrigtsen nursing himself back from injury, Kerr has a chance to lay down a marker this week and do something his foe has never done by winning a gold at the World Indoor Championships. The duel will have to wait but the Emirates Arena in Glasgow will still throb with passion as Kerr takes on a talented Ethiopian challenge. Wearing his distinctive sunglasses, the blinkered obsession with Olympic success starts in earnest on Saturday night.
“I’m here to win in front of my home crowd and I think I’m capable of it,” he said. The indoor season is always a stepping stone towards the greater prizes, but global medals won on home turf are not to be sneezed at. Kerr is a proud Scot, despite years spent in the US, and will not happily settle for anything other than a home win. After claiming Olympic bronze in the final won by Ingebrigtsen in 2021, he mothballed celebrations and said third was not enough. It had always been this way. As a boy, his rugby-playing father did not tell him he was going to be an Olympian — he told him he was going to be an Olympic champion.
So he will continue to say what he thinks even if it riles certain rivals. “I don’t really have much of a filter, which is sometimes not great for interviews,” he says. “You’ll get titbits here and there of me saying things that come off a little bit hard, but I don’t shy away from it. I’m a pretty honest, genuine person so these are my thoughts that are coming out unfiltered. I don’t particularly thrive on it, but I’m not going to stop giving my true full opinion.”
Ingebrigtsen’s blindfold barb referred to the time Kerr ran when setting a world best for the indoor two miles (8min 0.67sec) in New York in February. Kerr has also fired shots, notably telling The Sunday Plodcast that Ingebrigtsen was surrounded by “yes men” and would not retain his Olympic title unless he realised he had some “major weaknesses”.
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“Over the winter we’re focused on training and don’t have the outlets of racing, so there’s a lot of built-up emotions, theories and questions,” Kerr says. “He’s a big character and a big name in our sport. He draws a lot of eyeballs. There’s no ill will towards him. I’m just a competitive guy and that sometimes comes out in different ways.”
Kerr will run the 3,000m in Glasgow rather than his familiar 1,500m. One man in the shorter distance is Narve Gilje Nordas, who was third behind Kerr and Ingebrigtsen in Budapest last year. To add to the middle-distance subplots, Nordas is coached by Ingebrigtsen’s father, Gjert, who is the subject of a police investigation after Jakob and brothers Henrik and Filip alleged he had been physically abusive when they were growing up. Gjert, who has denied the accusations, has been refused an accreditation for Glasgow but will be in the arena to watch Nordas.
⬤ Fear and loathing behind the Ingebrigtsens’ fairytale
Despite those injured or wrapping themselves in cotton wool before a Parisian summer, there is a high-class turnout in Glasgow and Kerr will need to be on top form to see off Selemon Barega, the world indoor champion and the Olympic 10,000m gold medalist from Tokyo.
There is much to like about a talent who says he hopes the “shit-talking” egos will garner more attention. When Kerr was looking for a pro running team in the US he joined Danny Mackey at Brooks Beasts, snubbing the now defunct Nike Oregon Project because he knew Mo Farah’s now disgraced coach Alberto Salazar “was walking a line”.
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With a brother, Jake, who has played rugby for Scotland, he talks of being carved into a sportsman since the age of nine. Ingebrigtsen says he has been a professional since he was eight. This high-grade one-upmanship promises to get juicier still when 2022 world champion Jake Wightman gets back to his best.
⬤ Josh Kerr: It is absolute war when Jake Wightman and I race
Elsewhere, Noah Lyles versus Christian Coleman will be six seconds of fun in the 60m, while another American, Grant Holloway, will aim to add a world indoor hurdles title to the three won outside. The British contingent is strong but could have been bigger, with Guy Learmonth one to miss out. The Scottish 800m runner did not gain an automatic place but could have been selected via his world ranking invitation. He did not hold back when it failed to come, lambasting UK Athletics “blazers” for their focus on medals, dubbing the decision “disgusting” and talking of toxic environments.
The home fires should still burn brightly. Laura Muir will also step up to the 3,000m on Saturday, while Jemma Reekie has a shot at the 800m title on Sunday. Learmonth has suggested Scotland is now strong enough to have an independent team and be more successful than British Athletics. The leading man agreed. “There’s not a ton of Scottish athletes on the team,” Kerr said. “But we pack a punch.”
World Indoor Championships
Starts Friday, 10.05am
TV BBC2/BBC iPlayer
Six of the best
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Friday
9.45pm Men’s 60m final (double world champion Noah Lyles v Christian Coleman)
Saturday
7.05pm Women’s pole vault final (a chance to see rising GB star Molly Caudery)
8.15pm Women’s 3,000m (Laura Muir, Olympic 1500m silver medallist, on home soil)
8.40pm Men’s 3,000m (world 1,500m champion Josh Kerr could make it a memorable half hour)
Sunday
7pm Men’s pole vault final (one of the sport’s true stars Mondo Duplantis the firmest of favourites)
9.20pm Women’s 800m final (Scotland’s Jemma Reekie goes for her first global medal)
