Collisions and variables, 1500m stars ready to jockey for Zurich win
ZURICH — Norway's Jakob Ingebrigtsen resumes his rivalry with Briton Josh Kerr at Thursday's Diamond League meeting in Zurich, and the race promises to be a humdinger.
Rarely has an event been as keenly contested in recent seasons as the men's 1500m, Ingebrigtsen and Kerr accompanied in Switzerland by the American pair of Cole Hocker and Yared Nuguse.
Going into the Paris Olympics, the narrative had all been about Ingebrigtsen avenging his world championships loss to Kerr.
Even World Athletics President Sebastian Coe, himself a two-time Olympic 1500m champion and whose career involved an intense rivalry with Steve Ovett, dubbed the tug-of-war between the two tremendous for the sport.
"It has an added piquancy because this is probably not a friendship made in heaven," Coe said.
Kerr and Ingebrigtsen have traded barbs since the Scot swept past the Norwegian to snatch world gold in Budapest last year.
Ingebrigtsen has said that Kerr "is known as the Brit who never competes". Kerr for his part has said he thinks that Ingebrigtsen has some "major weakness" and flaws in the "manners realm".
Either way, both were upstaged at the Paris Games as the unheralded Hocker surged home for gold ahead of Kerr, Nuguse taking bronze ahead of Ingebrigtsen.
'Anything can happen'
All four are present in Zurich in what will be one of the most hotly-anticipated post-Olympics showdowns.
"What makes it exciting is that we come out of our lanes and anything can happen," said Kerr.
"For the crowd, there's a lot of variables that can come into play with our distance. It's slightly longer than the 800m, a little more tactical, but also kind of pretty fast and pretty hard.
"It's the perfect distance to watch!"
Despite being twice pushed into world silver, Ingebrigtsen has long been the marked man when it comes to the 1500m.
"That's the position that everybody wants to be in," he argued.
"At the same time it's a unique position to be in where we can be quite a lot of runners all fighting for the same thing... have some good fights. That's what everybody wants to see."
Hocker added that it was "fascinating to see in the 1500m, no matter what race it is but even at the global stage, that everyone has a different strength and a different way that they want to set themselves up best".
"It's interesting to see everyone come together and collide, and everyone just tries to win."
Ingebrigtsen, who beat Hocker in the Lausanne Diamond League, then went on to smash the 3,000m world record in Silesia.
But he picked up a virus after that, something he admitted did not make for great preparation for an all-out battle with three of his closest rivals.
"Everyone told me I shouldn't be here," the Norwegian said. "I'll do as good as I can and do a good race.
"I'm here and I'm going to spend the next hours wisely and hopefully I'll be as good as I can tomorrow."
With Kerr and Ingebrigtsen barely able to look at each other during the pre-meet press conference, the Briton risked the wrath of the Norwegian when asked what the latter's strengths were.
"His dress sense," the Scot glibly deadpanned to a silent room.
Ingebrigtsen at least responded with a more humble answer, saying that Kerr gave "100 per cent when it matters".
"Josh has been doing that since at least the Tokyo Olympics. So being able to make your best race when it really matters."