Josh Kerr and Jakob Ingebrigtsen have received exceptional invitations to race the men’s 1,500 metres at the inaugural World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest.
The decision restores one of track’s leading rivalries to a field that already includes Olympic champion Cole Hocker and world champion Isaac Nader.
BUDAPEST | By Sayer Zaland
World Athletics has added Britain’s Josh Kerr and Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen to the men’s 1,500m at the inaugural Ultimate Championship, setting up their first meeting over the distance in two years.
The governing body confirmed the exceptional invitations on August 24. The championship will take place from September 11 to 13 at the National Athletics Centre in Budapest.
The move brings two of the event’s most recognisable athletes into a field already featuring American Cole Hocker, the Paris 2024 Olympic champion, and Portugal’s Isaac Nader, the reigning world champion.
Kerr enters the championship after breaking the long-standing mile world record at the London Diamond League in July and then winning Commonwealth gold in Glasgow. He later missed the European Championships as he managed his workload.
In a statement reported after the invitations were announced, Kerr said his season had attracted attention but that he still wanted to test himself in the biggest races against the strongest opposition.
Ingebrigtsen won Olympic 1,500m gold in Tokyo, where Kerr took bronze. Their rivalry intensified at the 2023 World Championships in Budapest, when Kerr defeated the Norwegian to win the global title.
At the Paris Olympics a year later, Hocker won gold and Kerr took silver, while Ingebrigtsen finished fourth. The British and Norwegian runners have not raced each other over 1,500m since the Zurich Diamond League meeting in 2024.
Their return to Budapest adds a personal contest to a championship designed to bring leading athletes together at the end of the international season. It will also give Kerr and Ingebrigtsen another direct test against Hocker and Nader in a field containing winners from the Olympic Games and World Championships.
World Athletics announced the invitations in its official championship release. Details of the pair’s recent form and rivalry were independently reported by Reuters.
File photo: Josh Kerr celebrates ahead of Jakob Ingebrigtsen in the men’s 1,500m final at the 2023 World Championships in Budapest. Photo by Erik van Leeuwen/Wikimedia Commons, available under the GNU Free Documentation License 1.2 or later.