Shots Fired: Josh Kerr Takes Aim at Ingebrigtsen’s “Major Weaknesses”, Tactics, “Yes-Men”
"If he doesn't realize that he's got some real major weaknesses, then he will not win the 1500 meter gold medal next year"
By Robert JohnsonIn a recent appearance on the Sunday Plodcast podcast, 2023 world 1500 meter champion Josh Kerr had some bold statements regarding 2021 Olympic 1500m champion Jakob Ingebritsen. In the November 11th edition of the podcast hosted by Oli Lum and Matt Seddon, Kerr seemed to relish the fact that he had the opportunity to point out that Ingebrigtsen doesn’t win many paced races as right after doing so Kerr said, “I would love for him to be listening to this.”
Kerr emphatically stated that Ingebrigtsen has some “real major weaknesses” that Kerr believes Ingebrigtsen is oblivious to because “the ego is pretty high on this one” and he’s surrounded by so many “yes-men.” And Kerr believes it all could cost Ingebrigtsen big time in 2024. “If he doesn’t realize that he’s got some real major weaknesses, then he will not win the 1500-meter gold medal next year,” said Kerr.
Now, I imagine some of you think this is another example of the press taking things out of context to build up the hype train. Far from it. You can listen to the whole podcast here or watch it on youtube here– the relevant statements start after the 19 minute mark of the pod or 17:35 on youtube – or you can listen to the LetsRun.com crew break it down when we analyzed Kerr’s statements on our LetsRun.com Track Talk Supporters Club podcast below:
Talk about Kerr’s comments on our messageboard: Shots Fired: Josh Kerr Says Jakob Surrounded by “Yes-Men”, Has Major Weakness, and “pretty high” ego .
Here is a transcript of what was said.
Host: Do you quite like the fact that you know what, he (Jakob Ingebrigtsen) runs with pacemakers all year and then the one race he doesn’t, he’s not as strong. You know, he’s, he’s easy to beat, I guess?
Yeah, I do think people will start realizing that a little bit now, but I don’t think he will, because the ego is pretty high on this one, but… he was paced in 2021 for his Olympic gold medal, by Cheruiyot. So it’s like, if you really look at it, he doesn’t win a lot of non-paced races. I would love for him to be listening to this. And so that was a big part of our training as well.
There was a question asked to him earlier on in the season of like, ‘Are you worried about the world championship not having a pacer and all this stuff?’ And I think his answer was, ‘When the pacer drops out, I am the pacemaker.’
And I was like, ‘Oh, you have, you have no idea. Like you’re just you know, you’ve won so many races, you ran (so) fantastic all season, that you’re just on this, you must be surrounded by so many yes-men that you don’t realize that you have weaknesses.’ And I think that was part of his downfall.
If he doesn’t realize that he’s got some real major weaknesses, then he will not win the 1500 meter gold medal next year. And you know, I’m okay with that.
And so yeah, I think, you know the 5k is not as popular (of) an event to watch as the 1500. So he wants to win the 1500. The 5k is just almost like an afterthought for him, and I think he’s much better at the 5k than he is the 15, which is crazy to say, because he’s ran (sic) so fast in the 15. But yeah, I think if he wants to try and really compete to win next year, he’s gonna have to, he’s gonna have to change some things up.”
