It is almost 40 years since vast swathes of the British public tuned into watch Sebastian Coe, Steve Ovett and Steve Cram leave the rest of the world gasping in their slipstreams. But on Wednesday evening Josh Kerr, a 25-year-old from Edinburgh, rekindled those golden memories with a world championship 1500m victory for the ages.
Few had given Kerr, instantly recognisable with his Oakley sunglasses, much of a chance against the Olympic gold medallist, Jakob Ingebrigtsen. But Britain’s newest champion had not spent eight months living a monkish existence to settle for second.
