At the beginning of the day, with Stuart Weir in Oxford, England, and myself in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, Stuart gave me a list of stories he was focusing on. It was no surprise that he was writing on both 3000 meters. He also included the pole vault and 400m; we will see those tomorrow.
Thanks, Stuart, for a wonderful story!
Men’s 3000m
Josh Kerr had summed up his race plan for Glasgow in two words: “To win,” and he delivered before a capacity crowd which included his parents, brother, and nephews. He had said: “I wanted to have more of a crowd, but the tickets seem to be a little difficult to get.”
Josh had also said that he felt a responsibility to put on a show for the locals: “I don’t feel like I’ve done the British fans as proud as I could have over the past couple of years in terms of the performances in the UK and in Scotland so it’s fascinating to come back in perfect shape and being ready to go after a world title on home soil. I feel like that’s what the UK fans deserve from me. But after obviously the Commonwealth Games and maybe Birmingham indoors last year and some of my performances in the trials, I feel like I haven’t quite been up to scratch recently. And so I’m excited to come home with fantastic fitness, go up against a great field, and see what I’ve got”.
Josh had also spoken in advance of the challenge of running 15 laps on a track with tight bends with a field of 12.
It is hard to say who was the favorite in the race – a rarely run distance. Selemon Barega is the Olympic 10K gold medallist from Tokyo. He has also won medals at 3000m in the last three World Indoors. Josh Kerr is not only the World Outdoor 1500m champion but has just broken the World Record for 2 miles at the Millrose. Yared Nuguse had won two Diamond League 1500s last year. The only one missing was a blindfolded Jakob Ingebrigtsen – the Norwegian had said last month that he could beat Kerr with a blindfold!
Barega was an early leader who opened up a gap for the rest. That seemed his best chance of a win – to stretch the field and run the finish out of the 1500 specialists. Gradually, the pack closed on him. One felt that if Kerr and Nuguse had been able to tell everyone how to run the race, they would have planned it…
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