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Confident, explosive, a world champion: Josh Kerr is undoubtedly one of the British athletes to watch at this summer’s Olympics in Paris.
Kerr’s fierce rivalry with Olympic Jakob Ingebrigtsen is one of the most highly anticipated clashes of the Games and the Scot will be full of belief after becoming world champion at last year’s World Championships in Budapest.
The middle-distance athlete has since gone from strength to strength, smashing Steve Cram’s 39-year-old British record in the mile race in Oregon, in what was his latest showdown with the Norwegian star Ingebrigtsten.
Kerr claimed bronze at the Tokyo Olympics three years ago, with Ingebrigtsen winning gold, and the 26-year-old from Edinburgh will be further motivated by a perceived snub at last year’s BBC Sports Personality of the Year awards.
Despite winning the world title in the 1500m, Kerr missed out on the six-person shortlist for the BBC’s awards - with World Athletics president Seb Coe among those to declare: “No Josh Kerr on the list, are you having a laugh?”
However, Kerr, who hails from the same Edinburgh AC club as former world champion Jake Wightman but now trains in Seattle, has vowed to use that as “big motivation” ahead of the Olympics and there would be no doubting his star status if he emerges victorious in his battle with Ingebrigtsen over the 1500m distance.
“I’m an Olympic bronze medallist and I’m going to go after that gold medal,” he said. “I’ve earned everything I got in my career to this point and I’m going to earn the right to be in that conversation and I’ll show that through my performance and mental resilience.”
Indeed, there is a brashness about Kerr that can be as electrifying as his all-out commitment to attack the field, which has produced a sensational rivalry with Ingebrigtsen. Rather than backing down, Kerr has often fanned the flames and described the defending champion as having “major weaknesses”.
“He’s obviously a big character and a big name in our sport and so he draws a lot of eyeballs, and those are the questions that sometimes people want to ask me,” Kerr told The Independent.
“I give honest answers and reviews and I think he does the same. I don’t think it really cuts too deep on either end. There’s no ill will towards him. It’s just I’m a competitive guy and I want to win and so sometimes that comes out in different ways.”
And at the Olympics, Kerr is going to do what comes naturally and is backing himself to win gold. “Maybe it’s ego-driven, maybe it’s money-driven, I don’t know what it is now,” said Kerr.
“I’ve kind of done what I was supposed to do and become world champion. Now we’re just having fun with it and that’s when I get real dangerous, when there aren’t really any more expectations, it’s just swinging for the fences.
“At the Olympics, if there’s a 99 per cent chance of bronze and a 1 per cent chance of gold, we’re going to swing for the fences and get that gold medal.”
