History maker! Josh joins legends Liddell and Wells in elite club

Wednesday 7th August 2024

Josh silver lining as becomes first Scot to win back-to-back Olympic medals

By Peter Jardine, Head of Communications

Allan Wells claimed gold in the blue ribbon 100m event at the Olympics in Moscow in 1980.

A couple of days later the Scot landed silver in the 200m to give him a remarkable medal double.

For athletics afficionados of a certain age, that short wait for BBC commentator David Coleman – ‘Did Wells get it. Or not?’ – to confirm Wells had won the 100m title remains an unforgettable memory.

Decades earlier, and with the Second World War in between, Eric Liddell had famously won the Men’s 400m gold at the 1924 Olympics in Paris.

Liddell’s story is well-known and captured, albeit with heavy cinematic licence, in the movie Chariots of Fire. What is remembered less often is Liddell won a bronze in the 200m, too.

Now, however, we must add Josh Kerr’s name to those of Liddell and Well. Call it the Scottish track icon club, if you like.

Photo by Hannah Peters for Getty Images

Silver in a Men’s 1500m final laced with drama in Paris on Tuesday night gave Josh an ‘upgrade’ from the bronze he claimed in Tokyo three years ago.

But significantly it means he is the first Scot in track and field to EVER win a medal at more than one Olympic Games.

Right back at the start of the 20^th century, Wyndham Halswelle won medals in 1906 and 1908 but we are assured by Arnold Black, the scottishathletics Historian, that the 1906 events are not formally recognised as Olympics. So it really is Josh The First.

It was not quite the coronation he had hoped for, of course. For months the reigning World Champion had made no secret his target was gold.

No doubt arguments will rage for some time on that public confidence but what is certain is that the hype is good for the sport and good for the athletes themselves in a financial sense and in terms of their status in global sport.

What will stand the test of time, for sure, is the excitement generated by the race. Both in an enthralled Stade de France and across a global TV audience.

It’s no exaggeration to suggest that it will be talked about for as long as Seb Coe’s first 1500m win – back when he shared a room with Wells in Moscow some 44 years ago.

Photos via Getty Images

Josh ended up sandwiched between Americans Cole Hocker, who won with a new Olympic Record of 3:27.65, and Yared Nuguse (only one hundredth of a second behind the Scot).

The times posted were ultimately the benefit from the hot pace set almost immediately by Jakob Ingebrigtsen, who was to finish fourth.

‘I knew we had to weather a storm early, keep calm and making sure I was as emotionally as locked in as I could be,’ said Josh.

‘At 600 to go I felt like I had quite a lot left and I got pushed out slightly on the last bend. I had to work hard, got around Ingebrigtsen but there was so much running left at that point and it’s so hard to keep track of everyone in the last 100m.

‘The result is what the result is but I’m super proud of how I executed.

‘It would be amazing to get gold at Los Angeles (at the next Olympics in 2028) but I’m secure in myself as a medallist at every championships bar one in the last four years.

‘I’ve been consistent and this level and I will get the medal I want by the end of my career. It didn’t happen today but it was a big step in the right direction.’

A British Record at 3:27.79 eclipsed the mark set by Mo Farah back in 2013. That Farah run didn’t come in a championship but in a paced race in the Diamond League in Monaco.

Of course, with that being the British Record, it means the Scottish Record is at the same mark – No 8 in all-time list for global Men 1500m running.

Just try thinking about that for a moment. No 8 in the world is the best by a Scot. That feels like a credit to guys like Chris O’Hare and Jake Wightman as well as Josh for pushing that Record over the last ten years.

We saw young athletes from Edinburgh AC watching the Paris action on a big screen and the visibility of ‘see it, to be it‘ can be very powerful. Perhaps best not to tell the youngsters the Men 1500m Edinburgh AC Club Record just yet, however.

But back to Paris 2024. When the dust settled, 15 hundredths of a second separated the three medallists in the Men’s 1500m. A script worthy of Chariots of Fire, right enough.