By Mitch Phillips
BUDAPEST (Reuters) -Briton Josh Kerr pulled off one of the shocks of the World Championships when he beat Olympic champion and hot favourite Jakob Ingebrigtsen in an absolute carbon copy of last year’s final to take 1,500m gold on Wednesday.
Favourite in 2022, Norway’s Ingebrigtsen was outkicked by Britain’s Jake Wightman to miss out on gold and Kerr, the Tokyo Olympic bronze medallist behind Ingebrigtsen, made his move at about the same spot with 200 metres to go.
Kerr dug deep to stay in front and won in 3:29.38 with Ingebrigtsen, whose 3:27.14 run in Poland five weeks ago made him the fourth-fastest man in history, taking silver in 3:29.65.
Fast-finishing Norwegian Narve Gilje Nordas secured the bronze in 3:29.68.
“It’s been a long time coming. It’s quite an overwhelming experience. I’m so proud of myself,” said Kerr, who ran the race in sunglasses.
“I didn’t feel like I ran the best race either. I just threw my whole 16 years of this sport in that last 200m and didn’t give up until the end.
“But it would scare you how meticulously we planned for this. We threw everything we had at this in terms of nutrition, sleep, training, race reviews, everything. We left no stone unturned and if it wasn’t a gold medal today, that was the best we could have done. And so I planned like a champion and I was able to do that for myself today.”
Ingebrigtsen said his legs felt heavy as he was unable to respond to Kerr moving onto his shoulder.
“I don’t feel my body was quite 100%. In today’s race I wasn’t the best,” he said.
“I won’t blame it on anything, but last year I was by far the best, but did a worse race. But today I wasn’t the best. I’m disappointed, but not when others do things right and are as prepared as they are. I don’t feel like I could have done much differently.”
Last year Ingebrigtsen recovered to win the 5,000m gold and he has the chance to do that again in Budapest.
(Reporting by Mitch Phillips, editing by Ed Osmond)
