Paris 2024 Olympians Josh Kerr and Jakob Ingebrigtsen have formed a bitter rivalry in middle-distance running over the past 12 months and are set to clash heads once more at the Zurich Diamond League
Athletics may be seen as a gentleman's sport, but there's nothing gentlemanly about the ongoing feud between middle-distance runners Josh Kerr and Jakob Ingebrigtsen.
2023 World Championships - "He’s just the next guy" Although they have competed against each other for years, their actual rivalry appears to have begun on August 23, 2003, after Kerr claimed a shock win over Ingebrigtsen at the 2023 World Championship 1500m final in Budapest, Hungary. The feud escalated further exactly a year ago at a Zurich Diamond League press conference, when Kerr clapped back. The Edinburgh runner said: "He can be disrespectful to me, that's fine. I still have the World Championship gold medal and I'm going to be the world champion for the next two years regardless of his comments. Obviously, I don't love disrespectful comments and I've worked hard to get into this position and I beat him on the day.
Ingebrigtsen’s wager - “I would’ve beaten him blindfolded” Ingebrigtsen, while recovering from an Achilles injury that forced him to withdraw from the 2024 indoor season, told Stavanger Aftenblad in February 2023 he was "pretty sure" he'd come out on top the next time he faced his rivals. “I don't like sometimes getting dragged into it with a few disrespectful comments because I feel like I've shown a lot of respect,” Wightman said. “It probably means that we're doing something right if someone feels the need to say that about us.
"The biggest issue is giving people like Kerr attention. That's what he is seeking. He is missing something in himself that he is searching for in others. I'm not the sort of guy to approve those sorts of things." "Nobody's told me anything to my face. If I dislike someone and I have something I want to say to them, I approach them and I confront them and tell them what I mean, what I want...All of a sudden being each others' friends while throwing each other under the bus in the winter when you're in a safe environment in a podcast is a coward move.”
"If people are holding on to that in our sport because they want storylines and they want excitement, then sure, we'll take that. But that's just what's going on. It's not like we're putting it on to bring eyes to the sport." The pair were intentionally separated in the athlete and media mixed zone beneath the Stade de France. Organisers thought it would be too awkward to have them standing just a few feet apart while answering questions, so they arranged separate areas for each athlete.
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