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.
As Kerr revealed after his thrilling victory, his preparations had included training away from his fiancee and eating an ultra-strict diet for months. Shortly before the championships in Budapest he even gave his usual phone to his fiancee to stop himself becoming distracted. In its place came a basic model with two apps: Fantasy Football and Duolingo, as Kerr is trying to learn Spanish.
“The best athletes are making sacrifices on a daily basis,” said Kerr. “I don’t live in Scotland any more, I live over in the US [Seattle] away from my parents and family. I live in a different state to my fiancee as well. I’ve put in the hard yards, I’ve done it an honest way and I know that if I come into a championship without missing any days through injury or illness then I’m going to be in a position to medal.”
“I had a slice of pizza after my win, after maybe having a champagne or two. It’s not sitting well already, so might be going back to chicken and rice today.”
Kerr – whose family has a rich sporting heritage, with his father, John, and brother, also called John, having played professional rugby – is used to making sacrifices. He moved to the US to chase his athletics dream at the University of New Mexico, in Albuquerque, as a 17-year-old..
“It was a big leap of faith,,” he says. “I hadn’t taken a visit. But if you’re not pushing your boundaries you’re just going to get a little bit stale. They said they had 307 days of sun, so I was there.”
It helped that Kerr got a full scholarship. But because he was so young his parents had to travel with him to sign his release forms. “It was probably the least cool someone’s ever rocked up to a university,” he says.
In a world where sports stars rarely offer much beyond vanilla platitudes, Kerr also stands out because he is willing to speak his mind. Last year, he upset some teammates by promising he would never have his face on a yoghurt pot, at a time when Muller was sponsoring UK Athletics and using the sport’s top stars to promote its products.
Kerr also walks the walk on fighting doping in sport. He was still celebrating at 4am on Thursday when he remembered he had given permission for drug testers to be at his hotel between 6-7am. “I had to get a taxi back to make sure I was available for that time and I had absolutely zero minutes of sleep.”
His victory means he is now at the vanguard of a new golden age of British middle-distance running, which is carrying echoes of Coe and Ovett. Last year, Jake Wightman – with whom Kerr used to run in Edinburgh as a child – also won the 1500m world title, in Eugene. The 21-year-old Keely Hodgkinson is a favourite to win 800m gold on Sunday.
Kerr believes that the intense competition for places in the British team is one factor behind the success. Another is the success of the Athletics Integrity Unit, which has helped catch hundreds of drug cheats since being set up in 2017. “Every pound that goes into the research and development and making sure we’re keeping this sport clean is money very well spent,” he says.
“I was able to beat everyone on Wednesday, I was able to beat everyone in the world. And I’m doing that in this position where I know I’m a clean athlete, which is very, very satisfying.”
He is not finished yet. After Kerr won Olympic bronze in Tokyo two years ago, he took the rest of the season off to celebrate. This time, however, he set his sights on fresh summits, starting with an attempt at Mo Farah’s British 1500m record next week in Zurich. “I’ve wanted that record for a very long time,” he says. “So we’ll ride this high, but I’m not turning up hungover.”
After that will come next year’s Paris Olympics and Kerr’s latest victory has given him a thirst for more glory. “I’ll have a target on my back,” he says. “But I’m here to win more major championship gold medals. The moment where I realised I was going to be world champion with 50 metres to go will never leave my head.”
