Josh Kerr said the pre-race noise around his rivalry with Jakob Ingebrigtsen had no bearing on the shock outcome of an extraordinary 1500m final in which he finished with a silver medal.
Kerr set a British national record while the favourite Ingebrigtsen, considered to be Kerr’s only realistic opponent for top honours in a hugely anticipated clash, went out too quickly and faded to fourth in the final stages.
The American Cole Hocker arrived from nowhere to take gold but Kerr, who briefly looked favourite to win in the back straight, did not want to blame his high-profile enmity with Ingebrigtsen for the result. They are bitter foes but the expected two-horse contest failed to materialise in what became a finale for the ages; even so, Kerr had no regrets.
“The storylines are going to be the storylines, it’s going to continue I’m sure,” he said. “Comments will be made over the next couple of days. But this is an intense atmosphere, we’re only getting to do this every four years. I wanted to come away with a medal that could put me top in the world. I wasn’t able to do that but I’m consistently showing up at these championships and putting together performances I can be proud of. That’s the best I’ve got.”
Asked whether he had spoken to Ingebrigtsen since the race, he replied: “I shook his hand but that was about it, I know that he would have been disappointed with today.”
There was no self-flagellation for Kerr about posting a time of 3min 27.79sec in a fast, thrilling showdown. “I said what my goals were, it was pretty obvious but I put a performance out there today that I was extremely proud of. I focused on my controllables, I ran the best and the fastest tactical 1500m I have ever done in my life.”
It was enough for a personal best but not sufficient to see off the 23‑year-old Hocker, who slashed almost three seconds off his own fastest time. “This road isn’t over, I really wanted it today,” said Kerr, who improved on his bronze from Tokyo. “It makes me hungry and ready for more.”
Ingebrigtsen took the blame for his own performance and admitted he had made a tactical failure in setting out too fast. His strategy towards the end did not work, either; appearing to try forcing Kerr wide but seeing Hocker and the bronze medallist Yared Nuguse ease past.
“I felt extremely good and that’s why I pushed the pace a little too hard,” said the Norwegian, who admitted he was surprised to look up and see he had run the first lap two seconds quicker than planned. “I saw that I got a starting gap, and I was a little bit eager. Of course, it’s not what I was hoping for. I can only blame myself.”
The rivalry with Kerr was, he claimed, irrelevant to how he assessed the race. “It doesn’t mean that much. What was important was that I spoiled the race for myself.”
Kerr would not deny his opponent had got it wrong, saying his absence from the podium was little surprise. “If you’re going at sub-world record pace without a pacemaker it’s a bold strategy. Obviously he went out a little too hard, you could see in the last 200m that he was looking around to see if we were still there and we were. It was a brave strategy and it didn’t work out today but it made for one heck of a race.”
Hocker, who finished sixth in Tokyo, suggested the focus on Kerr and Ingebrigtsen had worked to his advantage. “The headlines were about them and rightly so,” he said.
“It can be nice to fly under the radar as much as I can. I think people in the face knew I was a competitor. It was another thing not to have that noise and I think I took advantage of it.”
The Glaswegian Neil Gourley, who finished 10th, said he had expected the winner to come from outside the Ingebrigtsen and Kerr pairing.
“I think everybody assumed it would be one of those two guys because of what’s happened in recent years,” Gourley said. “But from an athlete’s point of view you pick up on certain things people do in certain races. Maybe it was partly the noise but I think it was more analysing what Cole has done recently.”
