British 1500m champion is going for gold in Tokyo and intends to ‘throw everything at the race’

When it comes to his chances in the Olympic 1500m final, Josh Kerr pulls no punches. The 23-year-old Brit is going to Tokyo to win a medal – ideally gold – and he believes everything in his life so far has led to this moment.

“I’m an athlete who focuses on getting medals,” he says. “I’m not here to try to race a million times a year and to make lots of money on appearance fees and all that stuff. I’m here to make medals. And for me to make a medal in Tokyo I need to be in shape to run sub-3:30 in the Olympic final.

“I look no further than August 7. My year will probably end on that day due to the fact that I’m throwing my whole life at this race. This has been a build up that started when I was about nine years old for this specific situation and this race. People keep asking me what I want to do afterwards and if I want to run fast and I’m like no, I want to throw every single thing that I’ve got at this championships, see what comes out of it and learn from it.”

Kerr exudes confidence and does not mince his words. There will be no soft medals in the men’s 1500m at the Games either. World champion Timothy Cheruiyot of Kenya is expected to set a furious pace from the front. Jakob Ingebrigtsen of Norway has been in terrific form this year. Olympic champion Matt Centrowitz of the United States is rounding into form to defend his title. Then there is US champion Cole Hocker, fast-finishing Polish runner Marcin Lewandowski, in-form Australian duo Stewart McSweyn and Oliver Hoare, plus Kerr’s team-mate Jake Wightman of course.

Kerr knows this, though. Yet he relishes the challenge and adds: “The major championships is where I live. It’s where I peak and what I go for.

“I don’t care if you go and run the trials and don’t make the team and then two weeks later you run 3:28. That’s still a failed year for me.

“I’m coming into some phenomenal shape and coming into the best shape I can to go out and try to add to the medal tally for Team GB. But post-August 7, I can’t imagine I’ll be racing.”

Kerr is speaking to AW via video from Los Angeles. He has just come down from an altitude camp at Albuquerque and is poised to run an 800m time trial with a deliberately slow first lap before picking it up in the latter stages (after our interview he clocked 55.8 and 50.5 for 1:46.3 followed by a 300m and 200m). Then on Monday (July 26) he flies to Japan for the Games.

After getting stuck in traffic he is 10 minutes late for the interview and I nearly abandon the call. Good job I didn’t. When Kerr gets talking it is stirring stuff.

“For every kid in any sport whether it’s football or rugby or whatever you don’t dream of being in the club championships and winning that,” he says. “You think about the World Cup.

“So I never dreamed about just going to the Olympic Games. I never dreamed about being an Olympic finalist. I dreamed about being the Olympic gold medallist and that’s who I am and that’s how I work. If I’m not the best of the best then what’s the point doing it.”

Talent from an early age

Here is an interesting statistic about Kerr. When you study the UK all-time under-13 1500m rankings, Kerr is the only one to reach the Olympics. In fact, many of the young athletes on the list vanished before they hit the end of their teenage years.

So how does Kerr explain his longevity? “This was a big thing when I was 12 actually,” he explains. “My parents were massive in this process. We looked at the rankings list and realised none had made that jump from being really good young athletes to the senior level. It is difficult if you don’t have the right guidance because you become greedy.

“No one really remembers who the under-13 Scottish or British record-holder is at 1500m, so it doesn’t matter that much. You don’t have to throw your whole career away by over-training at that age. If the goal is to be in the sport for a long time then you need to train smart and surround yourself with the right people.

“My parents were huge in that process and made sure that I didn’t overtrain, enjoyed what I was doing and just had fun on race day but also the eyes were always on the bigger picture and the older athletes.”

Kerr is from Edinburgh and he comes from a sporting family. His brother Jake has played rugby union for Scotland and Josh also looks like he could have been a rugby player with a build that looks from a glance to be slightly too burly for middle-distance running.

Once he gets moving on the track, though, his powerful long stride eats up the track. He is all muscle and sinew and, despite his size, feels his stamina is better than his raw speed.

Despite his Scottish roots, though, he has lived in the United States for several years. He explains: “I’ve built a life out here. I went to university (New Mexico) out here for four years. I’ve got a girlfriend and house over here. My family is huge for me – they come here to visit me and I want to go back and visit them but everything that made my running career has happened in the US. So it’s mostly why I stay out here. It’s where my life is at the moment.”

Since 2018 Kerr has been part of the Brooks Beasts – a sponsored team led by coach Danny Mackey – and he thrives in the set-up. “The team is a very fun set up to be around but also very focused when it needs to be,” he says. “It’s nice to have a load of help that we don’t really need to go out and source it ourselves.”

Kerr is so at home with the Brooks Beasts that he co-hosts a podcast called “Sit & Kick” with one of his training partners – the 3:57 miler David Ribich – whereas he has been keen to stay with the squad for as long as possible before travelling to Tokyo.

“I’m just learning from past championships and experiences,” he says. “Sitting in a room by myself in Font Romeu doesn’t work for me. I really like being around my team and my girlfriend and at my own house and my own environment where I can control things. I respond really well to altitude. I knew I wasn’t going to race again – in Gateshead for example – so I just flew back here after the British Champs and got my head down. I didn’t even go to the (Team GB) kitting out.

Brilliant 2021 so far

Kerr works closely with British Athletics staff such as Rob Denmark and everything is geared around getting him to the start line at the Olympics in the best shape. It certainly looks to be going well so far. In early to mid May he ran 1:45.74 for 800m and 13:23.78 for 5000m within a few days of each other in California. “I just wanted to make sure I had both ends of the spectrum covered,” he says.

In early June he largely front-ran a US all-comers’ record of 3:31.55 in Portland, beating Seb Coe’s mark from 1984. Racing sparingly and avoiding the Diamond League circuit entirely, his next outing was at the Müller British Championships where he narrowly beat long-time friend, rival and fellow Edinburgh athlete Wightman in a thrilling tactical race in 3:40.71.

“After that US soil record my confidence was pretty sky high coming into the British Champs and I ran it the way I wanted to. I felt I could have run it a lot of different ways and the way I did it was the decision I made on the day in the moment and I’m pretty proud at the way I executed that.”

He enjoys the challenge of racing Wightman too. “Jake is an unbelievable athlete and I have the utmost respect for him. I love racing him because he’s difficult to race against and I’m sure he’d say the same about me.

“He’s really fast. I’m sure his raw speed is much better than mine but I think I’m maybe a little stronger than him. But he’s got the better of me a fair few times and I’ve got the better of him a fair few times. I do enjoy our battles and it’s always an exciting race when I come up against him. There are a lot of question marks over some athletes but Jake is an honest, hard working and really inspiring athlete.”

The pair will line up in Tokyo for Britain with Jake Heyward. Like Kerr and Wightman he is a former winner of the European under-20 1500m title and Kerr believes he will benefit hugely from the experience.

They will all brace themselves for a similar race to the world 1500m final in Doha where Cheruiyot went through 400m in 54.9 and 800m 1:51.7 before winning in 3:29.26 (Wightman was fifth and Kerr sixth). “Cheruiyot being there definitely changes the race but I think it changes it for the better,” Kerr says. “I think medals will be won by people who deserve it the most – those who are the most fit and the best at 1500m running rather than being a tactical affair where people might sneak in if they have good 800m speed or something like that.

“I think it’s going to be a very honest race (with him in it). I’m not too bothered either way but I do like having him in there because it does make it a little easier to understand what the tactics are going to be.”

Kerr believes he can handle the pace, though. “Our plan is to get strong and to know my speed is always there. The goal at the start of the year – because we didn’t know if the Olympics was going to happen – was to run sub-3:30 and to try to get the British record.

“So then we asked ourselves, ‘do I want to run sub-3:30 in that Olympic final or are you going run sub-3:30 if there’s no Olympics?’ And for me it’s about trying to run sub-3:30 in the Olympic final because that’s what’s going to get me on that podium.

“If I get a medal then I’ll walk away from this championships saying it’s progress but it’s not the final goal. When I visualise the race, I throw everything at it and I get everything I want from it.

“I’m excited to go out and showcase what I’ve got. Someone’s got to win that race and why not me?”