The Major Upset of the Olympic 1500m

The Olympic 1500m, was one of the most sought-after events in this year’s Olympics all because of two runners who were all talk, Jakob Ingerbrigsten and Josh Kerr. Both track stars started at youth, but later pursued their professional track careers resulting in world records. 

Let’s start off by talking about our first track star Jakob Ingerbrigsten. He was born in Norway, on September 19th, 2000, and has been breaking world records since the age of 15. Jakob is a middle-distance talent in middle-distance events ranging from the 1500m to the 5000m. He holds the 1500m indoor WR, 2000m indoor WR, the 3000m WR, and the all-time 2-mile record. The best thing about all of this is that his running career is nowhere near done. He has won many races throughout his years, the most impressive being the Tokyo Olympics where he took home gold in the 1500m! Jakob also ran the fastest time in the 1500m in the last 10 years. Jakob was the best bet to take the win until one runner named Josh Kerr came into play.

Now let’s talk about Josh Kerr. He was born in the United Kingdom, on October 8th, 1997, and started off showing his talent young, similar to his rival Jakob. He won the 2015 European Junior Championship in the 1500m with a time of 3:49! After that, his career only improved. As of this year, he won the indoor world championship 3000m, also breaking the indoor 2-mile record on the short and tight-turned track. He has had many incredible races, but the most monumental race in his career so far was the 2023 Outdoor Track 1500m final. He pulled away from Jakob, the crowd favorite, in the last 100m to take home the gold medal. He showed incredible fitness coming into the Olympics and was the only person recently to beat Jakob coming into that race. 

So we’re off to the Olympic 1500m final. The results were unexpected and brought some people joy and others despair. Let’s break the race down, Jakob started off the race with a 54.9 400m which is on pace to be faster than the world record! The next lap Jakob pushed the pace with another blistering lap of 56.6. Nobody dared to challenge Jakob as everyone was already struggling to hang on to Jakob’s hot pace. Even with this, everyone was still bunched up not wanting to let gold slip out of their grasp. Jakob remained in first until the final bend of the last 200m, this is when Josh Kerr pulled into first and everyone was up on their feet thinking this was going to be it. Until the last 50m Cole Hawker from Team USA sprinted by with a stunning kick crossing the line in 3:27.65 a new Olympic record. This left everyone in awe as no one ever suspected him to win this race. Josh Kerr then finished 2nd with Jakob finishing 4th, another huge surprise.

This race left Jakob and Josh with a heavy heart and the desire for more as they both set high expectations for the race but neither achieved them. Jakob still came back and won the 5000m at the Olympics with the anger he had from the 1500m helping to fuel him for the 5k. On the other hand, Josh Kerr keeps preparing himself for the next big race and is ready to take on whoever challenges him!