Josh Kerr powered to a dominant gold medal in the mile event at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow on Saturday, two weeks after breaking the world record at London Stadium.
The Scotsman was hemmed in with 400 metres remaining at Scotstoun before he shoved Kenya’s Brian Komen aside and charged from the middle of the pack to cross the line clear of the field. Fellow Scot Jake Wightman, renowned for his sprint finish, could not catch him and finished sixth.
“This is absolutely incredible,” Kerr said. “Doing it in front of the Scottish crowd where I learned how to race. I came here week after week as a kid. I didn’t waste any energy. I knew the opportunity would open up and I had enough energy to put a gap on them in the last few hundred. I went early to save everyone some stress.”
The race carried extra weight for Kerr, who described the Commonwealth Games as the event he had circled on his calendar before his world record attempt or his World Indoor title. He said he felt he had not delivered the performance he wanted at the 2022 Birmingham Games and that a British crowd deserved more from him.
Scotstoun holds deep personal significance for Kerr. He set personal bests in the shot put and high jump at the venue as a schoolboy and watched his brother play rugby there for Edinburgh. Both he and Wightman raced at the track for Edinburgh Athletics Club as juniors.
The stadium announcer who welcomed Kerr as world champion and world record holder was the father of Wightman, adding an unlikely subplot to an already story-laden evening. Members of the royal family were also in the crowd, braving the cold Glasgow conditions.
Kerr’s preparation has been meticulous. He converted his bedroom into an altitude chamber to increase lung capacity, and his running spikes were engineered in a laboratory in Seattle. He described the shoes, whose rocking midsole is designed to maximise energy return, as feeling like “driving a formula one car along the street for a cup of coffee” during his heat on Thursday.
Championship racing presented different challenges from his world record run. Pacemakers and the shelter of London Stadium’s stands gave way to gusts of wind ripping through Scotstoun and a field that constantly changed pace, with Botswana’s Thesipo Masalela setting the tempo in the opening lap.
Before the race, Kerr’s image appeared on billboards outside Glasgow Central Station. The bookmakers had listed him as joint favourite alongside Jude Bellingham for BBC Sports Personality of the Year before Saturday’s final.
