Josh Kerr Finally Has The One Medal That Kept Escaping Him

Josh Kerr owns the fastest mile ever run. Until Saturday night, the one thing he did not own was a Commonwealth Games medal. That gap is now closed, and he closed it in the most fitting way possible: in front of a roaring home crowd at Scotstoun, kicking clear of a world-class field to win the mile in 3:54.12, the first Scot ever to take a middle-distance blue riband at these Games.

The Championship He Had Circled

The time was some 12 seconds slower than the 3:42.66 world record he ran in London last month, but the meaning was the opposite of an anticlimax. This, Kerr said, was the race that mattered most to him all year. “This means everything. It was the championship of my season, it was the one I’d circled on the calendar,” he said. “It doesn’t get any better than this. In front of a Scottish crowd where I learned how to race. I came here week after week growing up as a kid.”

There was a debt in it, too. Kerr finished a disappointing 12th at the last Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in 2022, and he clearly hadn’t forgotten. “I didn’t put the performance together I wanted at the last Commonwealth Games and I felt the British crowd deserved more from me. I owed them that.”

A Scrappy Race, Then A Ruthless Kick

It wasn’t a procession. Botswana’s Tshepiso Masalela led the early stages, and both Kerr and fellow Scot Jake Wightman had to fight through a tight 13-man pack, elbows out. Kerr made his move on the bell, nudging past Kenya’s Brian Komen into third, then took the race on down the back straight and simply pulled away. Australia’s Cameron Myers, 20 and widely tipped as his biggest threat, had no response, taking silver, with former world champion Timothy Cheruiyot of Kenya third. Wightman, the 2022 world champion, faded to fifth.

“I had a lot of energy to pull out a gap in the last 200m, so I decided to go early and save everyone some stress,” Kerr said. Having pushed his body to the limit chasing the record in London, he relished a race run on tactics instead of pure pace. “London was a big stress. Doing a championship race is a nice clean palate, really using your brain instead of your body, and it’s how I love to race.”

The Mile, Back After 60 Years

There was history in the event itself. The mile returned to the Commonwealth programme for the first time in 60 years, the last men’s title having gone to Kenyan great Kip Keino in Kingston in 1966. It is the distance of Roger Bannister’s first sub-four in 1954, the “Miracle Mile” at that year’s Vancouver Games, and the Ovett-Coe-Cram rivalry that traded the world record six times in the 1980s. Kerr, the man who now holds that record outright, added his name to the lineage on home soil.

He has little time to savor it. In 13 days he switches to the 1500m at the European Championships in Birmingham, and a likely showdown with arch-rival Jakob Ingebrigtsen. “I felt relaxed,” he said. For one night, at least, he could.

Elsewhere On Super Saturday

There was plenty more for the home fans and the record books on a 44-gold day.

On the track, Kenya’s Mathew Kipsang kicked away late in the men’s 5,000m to deny Australia’s Ky Robinson a distance double after his 10,000m win, with India’s Gulveer Singh taking bronze to add to his 10,000m silver. Australia went one-two-three in the women’s mile through Abbey Caldwell, Jessica Hull and Claudia Hollingsworth. Nigeria’s Samuel Ogazi was a class apart in the men’s 400m ahead of Trinidad and Tobago’s Jereem Richards, and Navasky Anderson stormed home to win the men’s 800m.

Jamaica had the night of it on the track, collecting five golds including Dejeanea Oakley’s dominant women’s 400m, the women’s 4x100m, and the first-ever mixed 4x400m Commonwealth title. Australia edged a chaotic men’s 4x100m in 38.07 from the outside lane, a result confirmed only after Canada were disqualified, promoting Nigeria to silver and Ghana to bronze.