World 1500m champion Josh Kerr insists his rivalry with Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen is the last thing on his mind as he looks to back up that title with Olympic gold.
Kerr, 26, starts his quest with Friday morning’s heats, the day after World Athletics president Lord Coe, speaking at a Paris press conference, branded the impending showdown as a potential “race for the ages.”
Ingebrigtsen, who won 1500m gold at Tokyo 2020, further stoked the fire on Thursday when he told Norwegian media Kerr “is known as the Brit who never competes.”
But speaking before the Scandinavian’s latest barb, Kerr dismissed the clash of big personalities, at least off the track, as “not something that I spend too much time thinking about.”
He said: “I’m known to say what’s on my mind, and then the backlash is whatever the backlash is, really. So, no, I haven’t really thought much about it.
“And no we haven’t seen each other. I’ve been mostly Stateside for my two camps this year. I like to be in my own zones, and kind of away from as many things within my own environment and stuff I can control, so not too much gone into that.”
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Kerr said he has not heard of – nor watched – the Pre-Paris hype video Ingebrigtsen made with his brothers brothers Henrik and Filip, a pop song called ‘Ingen gjør det bedre’ (‘Nobody does it better’).
“That’s not something I’m playing around with at the moment,” said Kerr, who earlier this week was named captain of Great Britain’s athletics squad at Paris 2024.
“I’ve been very focused since British champs just on my goals. I’ve had a very smooth camp and I’m coming in really confident, I’m surrounded by the right people.
“The mission has not changed and I’m ready to go after it, and I’m sure you’ll see that through the rounds.”
Still, he predicted: “I’m sure there’s going to be some showmanship in there.”
Kerr came out on top when the pair last met in the mile at the Diamond League meeting in Eugene in May for a British record 3:45.34, but their head-to-head record in 1500m finals stands at 8-1 in world runner-up Ingebrigtsen’s favour.
And Ingebrigtsen is in fine form after recovering from an Achilles injury, unbeaten since winning the Diamond League 1500m on home soil in Oslo and lowering his own European record to 3:26.73 at the Monaco Diamond League meeting in July for the current world-leading time this year.
Kerr, who collected bronze in Tokyo, has raced just twice since Eugene – the 800m heats and final at the British Athletics championships in June.
He holds both the world indoor 3000m and world 1500m titles, but has yet to enter a 1500m race this year – a fact that led Ingebrigtsen to quip on Thursday: “It is difficult to refer to him as a rival when he is never there. He is known as the Brit who never competes. I try to enter as many races as I can and I want to be here to entertain.”
The Scot explained: “When you’re fit, you’re ready, the races come to you, and none of the races were the right timing for me. The Prefontaine Mile is close enough to a 1500m where you know what you’re doing.
“I normally come into major championships with one or two 1500s in the season, so we’re just playing around with some other distances to make sure that we’re ready for the challenge ahead.”
Kerr says he has a plan for whatever his Norwegian opponent throws at him, coming in “very well prepared” with a “set plan of what I think is going to happen, but I’m very flexible and fluid.
“I don’t really look at the end image too much. Obviously (gold) is the end goal, that’s what we’re looking for, but the process is what we are focused on right now, controlling what we can control.”
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Should Ingebrigtsen defend his Tokyo gold, he would become just the second man to win two Olympic 1500m titles, Lord Coe the first when he did it in 1980 and 1984.
That man, now president of World Athletics, said on Thursday: “I’m trying really hard not to sort of be really broad-brush about it, but yes, of course. It’s nice to see the 1500m back in the spotlight. It’s a sumptuous thought that the best two 1500 metre milers of their generation and for some time, potentially.
“And there’s added piquancy because this is probably not a friendship made in heaven. That doesn’t bother me either, we want that kind of thing in the sport. It really could be a race for the ages.”
