by Stuart Weir
Tokyo 2025 Preview, #15: Josh Kerr is focused on defending his 1,500m title in Tokyo!
Jakob Ingebrigtsen led the men’s 1500m final at the World Championships in Budapest (as he had done in Eugene the previous year) when a Scottish athlete – Josh Kerr – passed him to take the gold medal (history again repeating itself from 2023 when Jake Wightman was the winner).
Kerr is excited to have the opportunity to defend his title in Tokyo: “There’s not many people that have defended back-to-back with the other titles and I will be the only one on that 1500 start line who is going to be able to do it that day. So it’s a fun challenge that I’m definitely excited and ready for”.
Training is going very smoothly. He described the reason he hasn’t raced a lot this year as “tactical. I wanted to run the London Diamond League. I felt like running Prefontaine would hinder that in some ways. And I didn’t want that. And so, from April until now, it’s been smooth sailing, and I’ve completed all the races I needed to, with those decisions being more personal than anything else. I’m ready to go”.
Asked about why he seemed to race less than many of his opponents, he explained, “I don’t like to race when I’m not ready to race. Some people can travel extensively, living out of a suitcase and going back-to-back, and exploring Europe. I’m just not at that point in my life where I want to do that, and I’m able to cherry-pick the ones I want to do, which, again, is just the way I want to run my life. And I’m able to come back to America and put in an excellent block of training and then show off what I’ve been working on, and that’s the way that I like to do things. I think if there were bigger London Diamond League-type races in the UK, I would be racing more here”.
In a chat with GB track and field writers last week, he shared a conversation with Steve Cram about watching back video of races. Cram said, “You’ll watch that [Budapest] race back a million times. You’ve only run it once. Remember what it feels like to be the person running it and seeing it through your eyes”. Josh shared that the feeling he had when he watched that race was the finish: “50 metres is a long way when you’ve got a world title on the line!”.
Asked if losing in Paris still rankled, he joked, “definitely if I had won in Paris I’d be sitting on a beach somewhere right now,” followed by a more thoughtful: “Paris showed me that even when things go smoothly and you are in a fantastic position, that this sport can throw anything and everything at you. And your job is to turn up and do the best that you can and let the chips fall the way they fall. And you gotta control your controllables. That’s my job in Japan: to go out and nail my process and believe that I can win this race. If I set another British record and secure another silver medal, then we’ll get back to work. That is just life. I can’t control what anyone else in the sport is doing other than myself. Still, I feel very excited and confident that what we learned from Paris will be applied to this one, and it’s another year of experience banked. I think standing on that start line, I’ll definitely be one of, if not the most, experienced runners there, and with that world title on the line, I think that will turn out some good results for me.
He also explained that being world champion did change his mindset to some extent:
“It’s a tough one to explain. It’s more of a feeling than anything else. I already have a world title. I don’t need to go out and search for one. I have the plan. I have the road map, and I’m sitting here with the crown on my head. So it’s one of those things where I’m not chasing. I’m being chased, and people say that’s harder, but I think if you approach the race in the right way, it should be easier. So, it’s a difficult one to explain. But from a fitness standpoint, a mentality standpoint, I’ve never been so confident and relaxed going into a championship”.
