Final weekend, Nice Britain’s Josh Kerr set a brand new indoor two-mile world report on the 2024 Millrose Video games, shaving almost three seconds off the earlier report time. Kerr’s record-breaking return to the observe since profitable a world championship title within the 1,500m final summer season in Budapest garnered widespread reward—besides from Jakob Ingebrigtsen, who claimed he may have overwhelmed Kerr “blindfolded.”
In an interview with Norway’s TV2, Ingebrigtsen was requested about Kerr’s new world report. “It is extremely optimistic for me that my opponents are getting higher. Then I don’t must run alone,” mentioned Ingebrigtsen.
The Olympic 1,500m champion, who holds the two-mile world report [outdoors] of seven:54.10, isn’t giving Kerr’s efficiency a lot credence. “It’s not sure that he runs any higher now than final 12 months on the identical time; he didn’t run two miles then,” mentioned Ingebrigtsen. “I’d have overwhelmed him in that race, blindfolded… But it surely’s good that folks run higher than they’ve performed earlier than.”
Ingebrigtsen has been unable to compete because the 2023 Diamond League Ultimate in Eugene, Ore., in mid-September resulting from a nagging Achilles damage. In accordance with Norway’s NRK, the damage started when he took day off from working for his wedding ceremony and honeymoon within the Maldives. Challenges arose when he resumed coaching, resulting in months of sidelined restoration. This damage will preserve him out of each the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow and the World XC in Belgrade in March.
In the meantime, Kerr, the reigning world champion within the 1,500m, will race once more on the Athletics U.Ok. Indoor Championships this weekend earlier than embarking on his quest for world indoor gold within the males’s 1,500m or 3,000m in his dwelling nation of Scotland subsequent month.
Ingebrigtsen is again in coaching and plans to make his season debut on the Prefontaine Traditional in late Could or on the Bislett Video games in Oslo in early June. The potential showdown between these two titans of the game could not occur till a Diamond League meet in July or on the Paris Olympic Video games in August.
