British team captain ready for 1500m battle as he prepares to lead by example in Paris

The talking is over. The men’s 1500m – one of the most eagerly awaited events of the athletics action at Paris 2024 – gets underway on athletics’ first morning at the Stade de France on Friday (August 2).

After trading numerous verbal blows ever since Josh Kerr beat Jakob Ingebrigtsen to the world title in Budapest last summer, the two main protagonists will begin their journey towards what promises to be a thrilling climax of an Olympic final on August 6.

Both the British team captain and the Norwegian superstar (who even managed to have a dig at his arch enemy in a Eurovision style pop video recently) appear to be approaching this mission from a position of great strength.

Kerr’s year has already featured an impressive indoor season that culminated in the 3000m indoor world title, as well as a British record-breaking mile victory over his great rival that laid down the most emphatic of markers.

That race at the end of May was Ingebrigsten’s first since recovering from an Achilles injury, though, and since then he has landed European 1500m and 5000m gold medals as well as a brilliant European record-breaking run over the shorter distance at the Monaco Diamond League. The pot is simmering nicely.

Kerr maintains that the ultimate goal of qualifying is to do just that – to make sure you’re still in the game. After Tokyo three years ago, he knows from personal experience that reaching an Olympic final is no easy task. But, in a sport where ‘the one per cents’ all play such a big part, will there be a temptation to play some mind games or to send out a message to the competition?

“I haven’t made my mind up about that one yet,” grins Kerr, a bronze medallist in the Japanese capital. “Both probably. I'm sure there's going to be some showmanship in there.

“To be honest, I'm just looking to get through the rounds and get ready for the big one. The rounds are hard. In 2021, I was doing personal bests and my PB [3:29.05] is still from the Olympic Games final. It shows how few 1500s I run, but I'm good at them so I'm not too worried.”

Remarkably, this will be Kerr’s first 1500m race of the year. It is well known that the Scot and his coach Danny Mackey are forensic about choosing where and when to compete but, even so, such a minimalist approach is striking.

Aside from that aforementioned mile in Eugene, Kerr’s only other races outdoors in 2024 have been an 800m at the Oregon Relays in April and contesting the 800m at the British Championships, where he was involved in a spectacular fall with Elliot Giles in the final.

“When you're fit, you're ready, the races come to you,” says Kerr by way of explanation. “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.

“But we found at Pre that everything we're doing is working so then it's just like: 'Okay, I know how to execute’. I opened up my season and with a world record in the two-mile [indoors], so I know how to execute off no racing, and I know how to execute 1500s. I've run them my whole life.

“The races just didn't really plan out on the dates that we wanted them to, so we're just playing around with some other distances to make sure that we're ready for the challenge ahead. I don't take that lightly. We have a tonne of competitors who can go out and win medals but I feel like I've had great preparation.”

Without a step having even been run yet, already there has been much speculation about how the Olympic final will be approached. Will Ingebrigtsen, the defending Olympic champion, go for it from the gun and aim to grind the rest of the field into the dust or will he risk another final 200m burn-up – a tactic on which he become unstuck against Kerr and Jake Wightman in the last two global finals?

“The way that I ran this year shows I'm ready for either,” says Kerr. “If it's ready to close down fast paced, I've run some great 800s, and if it's going to be strung out over hard  rounds, I've run some longer distances.

“I have a set plan in my head for what I think is going to happen but I'm very flexible and fluid in the way that I’m approaching these championships, and it's just about not getting too high or too low through the rounds.

“You can learn a lot from the rounds, but you can also get a little bit in your head. It's a championship – there's so many highs, there's so many lows, there's so much going on – so switching off from the outside world a little bit, and focusing on what you can control, was the big goal of mine this year.”

With that in mind, Kerr has taken himself off social media as he focuses on the task at hand. He has not crossed paths with Ingebrigsten since May, either, partly due to deliberately staying away from more popular training venues like St Moritz.

The Seattle-based Kerr is a man that likes to do his own thing, to be in control of his own destiny. He knows he has more than one man to beat too.

 “It would surprise me if it didn't,” says Kerr if he thinks his world title win will have played on Ingebrigtsen’s mind. “But, again, I don't think it's just me. I think there's a fantastic slew of 1500m runners that are all going: 'We can win this in different ways’.

“That's what breaking down some of the best 1500m runners in the world does. It opens that door for someone else to do it. Jake Wightman did at first. And then we went from there.

“But Jakob won the Olympics in 2021 in an Olympic record and you don't lose that. And he's obviously run faster this year. So I'm just looking to go out and execute. And I believe I can do that better than anyone else in the world.”

Kerr is joined on the British team for the 1500m by Neil Gourley and George Mills, two athletes who have had their challenges in the sport but will be savouring their first Olympic experience.

Making the start line in the first place has been an achievement for Gourley, who won the British title in Manchester but suffered an injury-hampered winter that only saw him return to running towards the end of the spring.

Last year's European indoor 1500m medallist, who is also based in the US, admits his failure to make the 2021 Olympics almost caused him to call it quits, but perseverance has paid off.

“In 2021, there was a period where I wasn't sure how much love I still had for the sport, if I'm honest,” he says. “And, during that autumn afterwards, I was kind of struggling to love the day-to-day part of it.

“I thought that was kind of the premier years of my career, as it were, but it turned out not to be. It turned out I have some more left in me and I still feel like I've got some more just now.

He adds: “It makes [qualifying this time] sweeter. It is said that the lows make the highs and it's so true in this sport because it's so individual and you feel those low moments pretty brutally. It makes all the decisions I've made between 2021 and now so validating and makes it mean a lot more.”

Mills, meanwhile, arrives in Paris having captured the first major medal of his career after winning European silver over 5000m in Rome. He has plenty of work ahead of him, too, given that he will be tackling the 1500m/5000m double.

“I keep telling myself it’s just another 1500m and 5000m race,” says the Thomas Dreißigacker-coached athlete. “The double has been in my head since October. We sat down at the start of the year and analysed last season and then we put our plans together. We briefly spoke about the 5000m last season and thinking that could be an option for Paris, given how good the 1500m field was.

“We then thought: ‘You’ve only got one life and career so why not have a shot at both’? It’s something I want to do this year and also moving forward.”

As for dealing with the Olympic environment, Mills has been doing his homework.

“I think it’s naive not to look at anyone else and analyse their strengths and weaknesses. If you can know that you can prepare better. Knowledge is power. If you have an analytical approach and it doesn’t cause too much emotion and stress then it can really help you to learn what to expect.”

Following the medal success of last year’s World Championships, where the British team enjoyed their biggest haul of precious metal for 30 years, there are high expectations not just from the outside world, but also from the skipper.

“We're really going to battle for as many finals as we can,” says Kerr. “And at that point, the medals are going to be there for the taking. Hopefully we get some early medals and I'm very happy that I'm on the earlier side of the schedule as well to try and set the tone with that medal count and move on from there.”

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