Update. We have spoken to the coaches of Kerr and Wightman. Here is our article on the matter. Wightman is not going for sure. Kerr is still on the fence.
UK Indoor WC selection is based on first 2 at the indoor championships on Feb 17th which is compulsory.
Gourley gets a wild card as indoor tour winner so 3 from UK can run. UK selection policy implies that Kerr as an outdoor WC medalist gets a bye it says he will be first pick before winner so I read that as he doesn’t need to compete despite it being compulsory.
Jake would need to compete and also doesn’t yet appear to have the qualifying time.
friendly reminder that "Centrowitz won world indoors and olympics 2016, the world needs you there"???
What does this mean? That the olympics Centro won was also indoors? That the world needs them to compete at world indoors and the indoors olympics? WTF?
While I’d love to see him run, for those comparing with last year, it’s worth noting Kerr was only fast enough to finish 5th in Birmingham indoors 1500 so perhaps it’s not the best timing for his training.
While I’d love to see him run, for those comparing with last year, it’s worth noting Kerr was only fast enough to finish 5th in Birmingham indoors 1500 so perhaps it’s not the best timing for his training.
Update. We have spoken to the coaches of Kerr and Wightman. Here is our article on the matter. Wightman is not going for sure. Kerr is still on the fence.
Wightman's coach (and father) Geoff tells LRC that Jake will not compete at World Indoors while Kerr's coach Danny Mackey explains why the world champ is considering skipping World Indoors. Plus World Athletics president Seb...
“Mackey said he did not expect British Athletics to grant Kerr an exemption to skip the trials, though admitted he had not discussed the possibility with them.”
Why? Kerr is the reigning World Champ. Wightman is the only guy in the UK who is even close to him and he hasn’t raced in over a year.
Rest of the article is the same crap, just excuses for why Kerr can’t race. The fact is he doesn’t want to but it would look bad for him to say that. Or maybe he’s sitting on the fence until he knows for sure whether Jakob will be racing lol.
One other thing…
“I don’t know how Jakob does it, to be honest…Jakob, he can race 25 times a year, break all of these records, and be peaked for 10 months. That’s not really been Josh’s MO…We’re pretty selective about when he can be really ready to go. We don’t have a massive window with him.”
Jakob ran 18 races (indoors and out) last season including heats. It’s easy to do if you actually like to race. And he definitely wasn’t peaked for 10 months.
“Mackey said he did not expect British Athletics to grant Kerr an exemption to skip the trials, though admitted he had not discussed the possibility with them.”
Why? Kerr is the reigning World Champ. Wightman is the only guy in the UK who is even close to him and he hasn’t raced in over a year.
Rest of the article is the same crap, just excuses for why Kerr can’t race. The fact is he doesn’t want to but it would look bad for him to say that. Or maybe he’s sitting on the fence until he knows for sure whether Jakob will be racing lol.
One other thing…
“I don’t know how Jakob does it, to be honest…Jakob, he can race 25 times a year, break all of these records, and be peaked for 10 months. That’s not really been Josh’s MO…We’re pretty selective about when he can be really ready to go. We don’t have a massive window with him.”
Jakob ran 18 races (indoors and out) last season including heats. It’s easy to do if you actually like to race. And he definitely wasn’t peaked for 10 months.
You're clueless in so many ways mate.
First of, obviously Kerr wants to race there but not as much as he desperately wants to win the OGs, so he makes the hard (and for us, boring) choice.
What Jakob does, it's not easy, its uncommon and it almost only works if you're dope up or trains as a long distance runners. More explosive runners have shorter peaks and are further away from their peaks when training "normally". What Jakob does, Kerr can never do and its got nothing to do with "like to race". Jakob likes to race because he succeeds when racing, if he got a bunch of 5-10th places he wouldnt.
Rojo should understand the difference and also understand that the comparison to Centro is silly, but its also understandable, if the athletes cant sacrifice a "perfect" way to one race, the sport will never be interesting enough to grow,
It seems that the top runners have excuses for not racing. If you look back at the history of World Cross Country there was a time when the winner also did well in the Olympics- I know Lopes. Ngugi, Tergat. There are probably more.
For the popularity of the sport runners should be going to events like this and World Cross.
I DO wish some of the people posting here, who rarely win races or run fast would stop making a big deal out of someone finishing in the secondary places in (especially) early season races.
It put them in the spotlight to just be there running and it's good for the sport.
I’ll lose a lot of respect for Kerr if he can’t show up and run Worlds in his home country. Wightman I can understand because he probably would get dead last, so such a home coming would be too much of an embarrassment.
And aiming to peak in August as your excuse is lame because all of the top runners are going to try to be peaking in August. If he can run a 61min half, he can show up at Worlds.
“Mackey said he did not expect British Athletics to grant Kerr an exemption to skip the trials, though admitted he had not discussed the possibility with them.”
Why? Kerr is the reigning World Champ. Wightman is the only guy in the UK who is even close to him and he hasn’t raced in over a year.
Rest of the article is the same crap, just excuses for why Kerr can’t race. The fact is he doesn’t want to but it would look bad for him to say that. Or maybe he’s sitting on the fence until he knows for sure whether Jakob will be racing lol.
One other thing…
“I don’t know how Jakob does it, to be honest…Jakob, he can race 25 times a year, break all of these records, and be peaked for 10 months. That’s not really been Josh’s MO…We’re pretty selective about when he can be really ready to go. We don’t have a massive window with him.”
Jakob ran 18 races (indoors and out) last season including heats. It’s easy to do if you actually like to race. And he definitely wasn’t peaked for 10 months.
To me, Mackey is playing dumb. The answer is staring him right in the face. Race the 3,000 at World Indoors. An exemption for that is obvious, British Athletics would say yes before he finished the sentence. He thinks Kerr can hit 7:27 at 85-90%, then how about a 1500m runner performing well in a likely uber-tactical 3,000m race? It is an absolutely perfect setup with Kerr's tactical acumen and speed advantage. Many of the best athletes will be running World Cross. But instead, we'll use dumb hypotheticals around a 1500, which I get him not running as he says his goal before the spring is to be in maximal 5K shape.
Josh Kerr said he's "mighty disappointed" that he's not a finalist for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award. Let this serve as my official statement that I'll be "mighty disappointed" if Josh Kerr and/or Jake Wightman...
For marketing of T&F, does indoor season help? Slightly. Does indoor season help with revenue? Yes. If an athlete is top 25 in the world, is indoor season worth the risk of injury? No. Correlation with outdoor success does not justify indoors T&F.
While I'm thinking about it, J. Ingebrigsten didn't get to the final of "World Athlete of the Year 2023" because of his arrogance. At least half of IAAF jury (mostly African or Afro-Americans) didn't vote for him.
Keys of his arrogance:
1. Lack of respect for El Guerrouj who mentioned him in a Instagram post.
2. Lack of respect for his father who after all is behind what he became in this sport.
“Mackey said he did not expect British Athletics to grant Kerr an exemption to skip the trials, though admitted he had not discussed the possibility with them.”
Why? Kerr is the reigning World Champ. Wightman is the only guy in the UK who is even close to him and he hasn’t raced in over a year.
Rest of the article is the same crap, just excuses for why Kerr can’t race. The fact is he doesn’t want to but it would look bad for him to say that. Or maybe he’s sitting on the fence until he knows for sure whether Jakob will be racing lol.
One other thing…
“I don’t know how Jakob does it, to be honest…Jakob, he can race 25 times a year, break all of these records, and be peaked for 10 months. That’s not really been Josh’s MO…We’re pretty selective about when he can be really ready to go. We don’t have a massive window with him.”
Jakob ran 18 races (indoors and out) last season including heats. It’s easy to do if you actually like to race. And he definitely wasn’t peaked for 10 months.
Maybe I'm projecting here, but is Mackey accusing JI of doping?
Sure seems like m insinuation to me. He knows perfectly well how JI trains. He's clearly suggesting smth else
Did Mackey really say something to the effect of "media stress" etc.? About running tow 1500M races..?
How soft have these guys gotten.
I was a hoops guy, not much anymore, but NBA guys expend way more energy and physicality in games 4 nights a week and some back to back,,most guys today barely race at all. I mean come on..Kerr should shut the f-c- up anyway, way too much to say.
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