How the Ingebrigtsen-Kerr 1500m rivalry was pushed to new heights – even though neither man won

Before the men’s Olympic 1500 metres final, if you had offered Josh Kerr a British record time of three minutes 27 seconds and a guarantee that he would beat Jakob Ingebrigtsen, his eyes would have lit up.

His ubiquitous sunglasses would have hidden the excitement, but finishing ahead of his rival with a fast time was almost certain to result in Olympic gold.

It did not turn out that way.

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If the post-Tokyo Games narrative saw the 1500m reduced to a conflict between Kerr and Ingebrigtsen, Tuesday night’s final proved there was another story to write. Men’s middle-distance running has never seen depth like this.

Going into the race, there were 20 instances of athletes running a sub-3:28 1500m — nine of those were from Morocco’s world-record holder Hicham El Guerrouj. This final was the first instance of three men running 3:27 in the same race and that does not include Ingebrigtsen, the only one who started the day having previously broken the 3:28 barrier.

Ingebrigtsen actually broke his Olympic record in Paris. The only problem was three guys went faster than him: champion Cole Hocker (3:27.65), silver medallist Kerr (3:27.79), and bronze medallist Yared Nuguse (3:27.80), who went seventh, eighth and ninth in the list of fastest 1500m runners ever. Nuguse and Hocker weren’t even born when El Guerrouj set his 3:26.00 world record in 1998.

The 1500m has seen eight different medallists at the last three World Championships (in 2019, 2022 and 2023), with Kerr the only athlete to medal in the Olympics in Tokyo and Paris, improving on his bronze from three years ago. Of the 13 men who made the final in Tokyo, only four reached it in Paris: Ingebrigtsen, Kerr, Timothy Cheruiyot and Hocker.

The problem is that the Kerr-Ingebrigtsen rivalry is becoming increasingly hypothetical, fuelled more by what does not happen than anything else.

Kerr is not much of a circuit racer. He didn’t race a 1500m in 2024 before the Games, sitting out the European Championships in June, which Ingebrigtsen won in 3:31.95. Kerr opted for the 800m at the British Championships for what he described as a bigger tactical test with reduced room for error.

That ended in disaster when he tried to shoot up the inside of Elliot Giles on the home straight — much like Hocker did to him in Paris — and sent the two of them flying.

CHAOS in the men’s 800m!!

🥇 @BenPattison7 1:45.49
🥈 @MaxBurgin3 1:46.01
🥉 @MclearFinley 1:46.33 pic.twitter.com/7etVXCX125

— British Athletics (@BritAthletics) June 30, 2024

Kerr doesn’t require the rhythm of races, whereas Ingebrigtsen frequently appears on the Diamond League circuit. Give him pacemakers and wavelights and he can chase any record — he ran a 3:26 1500m in Monaco last month.

Ingebrigtsen is tactically smart and can move between distances. He is a two-time 5,000m world champion and holds the two-mile world record (7:54.10). However, he has not won any of the last three global 1500m finals: Wightman beat him in Eugene in 2022, Kerr in Budapest in 2023, and Hocker in Paris. Ingebrigtsen at least had the consolation of silver in 2022 and 2023.

Tuesday makes it three wins for Kerr over Ingebrigtsen in their last four meetings, with the Norwegian only taking the 1500m semi-final heat over him in Paris. Kerr had the better of him at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene in May when he broke Steve Cram’s 39-year British mile record. That day, Kerr kicked with 600m to go and held off Ingebrigtsen.

Ingebrigtsen was clearly mindful of not playing to Kerr’s strengths with a sit-and-kick like the 2023 World Championships, which ended in a 3:29 after the first 800m was run in 1:54.

Ingebrigtsen raced the Olympic final like a time trial. Theoretically, it played to his strengths and forced Kerr to run better than ever before. The risk? Ingebrigtsen had to play it perfectly or the wheels would come off.

“It was 100m too long. It’s not always easy to spend your energy wisely,” Ingebrigtsen told Eurosport after the race. “The pace is so fast the whole race, especially with me opening so strong, you can’t really tell, 100 per cent, when you’re hitting the wall before you hit it.”

His Diamond League performances are a singular race. Turn up, run, go home. It’s not the same as championship racing, physically or mentally, with three races in four days.

“I felt strong the first couple of laps,” Ingebrigtsen said. “I had difficulty telling the pace because it was quite fast. It was difficult to slow down. I saw I was starting to get a gap, so kept on pushing”.

He went 54.9sec and 56.6sec in his first two laps to go through 800 in 1:51.5 — 2.5sec faster than Budapest in 2023. Ingebrigtsen led for 1400m of the 1500m. He was his own pacemaker. It wasn’t his trademark wind-up where every 100m gets imperceptibly quicker. This was more surge, something out of the playbook of Kenya’s Mary Moraa.

Laps one and three were quicker than two. Hocker and Nuguse wound up from deep, getting quicker (at least, in relative terms) every 100m from 600m out. Hocker closed faster. Ingebrigtsen looked like he tried to run the kick from Kerr early, not even willing to get to a situation where the gold was reduced to a 200m shootout.

He had the field strung out by 500m. Athletes thought about running in lane two to avoid getting boxed in by the curb but immediately changed their minds, seeing how fast it was and knowing they couldn’t afford to run any extra distance.

Kenya’s Brian Komen matched Ingebrigtsen for two laps but finished last as the Norwegian’s surge at 800m took him out. That’s what normally happens in the Diamond League. To Ingebrigtsen’s credit, he rolled the dice. It was brave more than reckless. That style of racing will be needed to break a world record that has stood for 26 years.

The problem is the risk margin is higher than making it tactical and slower. When this type of race goes wrong, it goes really wrong. Ingebrigtsen tied up on the home straight, fighting harder, getting slower and losing all form, closing the final 100m in 13.8sec. For comparison: Hocker and Nuguse closed in 13sec flat and Kerr in 13.2sec. He tied up, too, just closer to the finish line.

Ingebrigtsen’s plan looked as much about him winning as Kerr losing. At the bell, the three eventual medallists were in third to fifth. Ingebrigtsen gave two glances over his shoulder along the back straight of the final lap. It’s generally a sign of fear and an indication that an athlete might be hitting the wall, and is something you never see from him.

Kerr had run the 1200m of his life, proving (again after Eugene) that he could contend in races that went out hard. Split the race into 15 lots of 100m and the only marker at which he was not in the top three was 700m, and even then he was fourth.

Here’s the splits for that 1,500m…absolutely insane…

1:51.5 through 800…

Look at that last 300… 13.3, 13.3, 13.0…That’s 39.6 off a HARD pace for Cole Hocker.

USA 1-3-5 is nuts.

Nothing Jakob could do on this one. The other guys were better today. pic.twitter.com/rklq99zrV9

— Steve Magness (@stevemagness) August 6, 2024

“I’m so proud of myself. I executed the best 1500m race I’ve ever done, on the biggest stage, by over a second,” Kerr told Eurosport. “It’s difficult to control what anyone else does, but I controlled myself, I positioned myself well to win and go after medals. It wasn’t enough over the last 20 or 30 metres, but I got beaten by the better man. I have to walk away with my head held high”.

Kerr ran wide on the final bend, trying to pass Ingebrigtsen. Those extra few metres are probably the only thing he regrets about the race. He finally got him with about 60m to go, only for the most unexpected ending to transpire.

Ingebrigtsen ran ever so slightly diagonally to cut across Kerr and force him wider in a last-ditch effort to stay first. This left the inside of lane one, by the curb, empty. Hocker ran straight up the inside and took gold. Kerr won the battle against Ingebrigtsen but not the war, and in desperately trying to beat Kerr, the reigning champion gave up his crown by pacing Hocker to break the Olympic record he set three years ago.

Kerr spoke to the BBC afterwards about being “consistent at this level” and maintaining success across major championships. That silver is his fourth medal in as many years. Ingebrigtsen’s medal cabinet still dwarfs Kerr’s — this ended a run of 17 international competitions where the Norwegian had made a podium, going back to the 2019 World Championships.

Even so, the pattern is now three global 1500m finals where Ingebrigtsen has been beaten. Kerr still has the better of the two when it matters.

They will battle again in 13 months at the World Championships in Tokyo and possibly at March’s European Athletics Indoor Championships in the Netherlands.

This isn’t over, it’s just getting started.

(Top photo: Christian Liewig – Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images)