We look at how the world’s best 1500m cast members combined to put on an incredible show at the Stade de France
If ever there was an event to help prove the point that track racing is about so much more than just running in circles, it was the men’s Olympic 1500m final in Paris.
This was a three-part drama that involved some fascinating characters. The opening episode had played out over the past year, with Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Josh Kerr trying to do all the scene-stealing with the verbal barbs and undisguised dislike for one another that did so much to build this race up in the first place.
The second also focused on these two leading men as the world watched to see which strategies might be employed in the early stages of the Paris final, a query that was rapidly answered by Ingebrigtsen as he shot to the front. Kerr had predicted a “vicious” showdown, and that’s exactly what unfolded.
The defending Olympic champion flew through 400m in 54.8 and 800m in 1:51.5, with the aim of breaking his competitors and nullifying the kind of late-charging threat against which he had come unstuck in the World Championships of 2022 to Jake Wightman and last summer to Kerr.
Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Josh Kerr (Getty)
“The big thing today was always going to be: weather the storm early,” said the British team captain. “I thought: ‘He is going to try and pull us into deep waters early and see who could survive.’ I had to take a few punches.”
Seb Coe watched on, knowingly. The World Athletics president, a two-time Olympic 1500m champion, had seen this before.
“I can think of one particular race where two of us just focussed emotionally and physically on each other,” he said. “We actually destroyed each other and an East German came past us both with around 40m to go.”
The race in question was the 800m final of the 1978 European Championships, where Coe and Steve Ovett burned all of their matches and Olaf Beyer, part of the now discredited GDR system, came hurtling past to take the title.
Though Kerr denied he had been distracted too much by Ingebrigtsen, Coe said: “There were two races going on there and the outcome of the first really determined the way the plates fell over the last 30 or 40 yards.
“In a funny sort of way, it almost became like a Diamond League and Ingebrigtsen clearly made the judgement that he was going to take them as quickly as he could into pain. He did that pretty well and I think he did do some damage.
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