Tokyo 2025 Preview , # 7, Josh Kerr’s Bid for Back-to-Back Glory

We hope you enjoy our Tokyo Previews! Remember to watch the upcoming podcast with Danny Mackey, coach of Josh Kerr! 

Tokyo 2025 Preview, #7, Josh Kerr’s Bid for Back-to-Back Glory

The men’s 1500m is arguably the most unpredictable event on the track. Last year’s Olympics were a case in point.  The line between dominance and defeat is thin. No distance on the track delivers more unpredictability, and few champions hold the crown for long. Since Sebastian Coe defended his Olympic title in 1984, every Games has produced a new winner. The World Championships have been a little different. Only three men in history have successfully defended the title, with Kenya’s Asbel Kiprop the last more than a decade ago. The event remains a revolving door of champions, each year reminding the sport how fragile success can be.

Josh Kerr knows this better than most. At the last world championships in Budapest, the British runner produced the performance of his career, outkicking Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen, the Olympic champion, to claim victory. It was a breakthrough moment for Kerr and also for British middle-distance running.

Now, with the Tokyo World Championships looming in September, Kerr finds himself in a position few runners ever face. He is the man everyone else is chasing, the target at the center of the sport’s most competitive distance. Whether he can defend his crown remains the central question of the summer.

The past year has reshaped Kerr’s approach. Rather than retreat into careful preparation, he has embraced a busier competition calendar. He has raced across both the 800 and 1500 meters in the new Grand Slam Track league early in the season, using each outing as a chance to learn, adapt, and sharpen his racing instincts. The idea, as he describes it, is to lean into curiosity. What happens if he shifts gears, presses earlier, or experiments with race rhythm? In his mind, the answers lie in racing more, not less.

That philosophy carried him to a win in Philadelphia over 1500 meters in June, a trio of 800-meter races in Kingston, Miami, Philadelphia and another 1500 triumph in Miami. In July he dipped under 3:30 in London, clocking 3:29.37 behind Kenya’s Phanuel Koech….