Josh Kerr and Jakob Ingebrigtsen Granted Invitations For The Ultimate 1,500m Showdown

Budapest’s National Athletics Centre has staged one global 1,500m final, and 0.27 seconds covered the first two men across the line. Josh Kerr won the 2023 world title there in 3:29.38, with Jakob Ingebrigtsen second in 3:29.65. Both are back on that track on Sunday, Sept. 13, for the 1,500m final at the World Athletics Ultimate Championship, and neither of them qualified for it.

World Athletics said on Monday that both men had been granted exceptional invitations, a mechanism it says it otherwise allows once per event at this first edition. Seating both required the field to grow from 12 places to 13, the largest final on the distacne track program. Prize money now reaches 13th place, worth $5,000. The governing body said its steering board concluded the race would be incomplete without either runner.

Qualification runs through the Paris and Tokyo champions, the Brussels Diamond League final, then the world rankings on Sept. 1. Kerr’s world title is from 2023, Ingebrigtsen’s Olympic 1,500m title from 2021.

At London Stadium on July 18, Kerr ran the fastest mile in history, 3:42.66, 0.47 quicker than Hicham El Guerrouj’s 3:43.13 from 1999. World Athletics has not yet ratified it. His 1,500m split on the way, 3:27.62, is now his best at the distance. He won the Commonwealth mile in Glasgow on Aug. 1 in 3:54.12. Defending his title in Tokyo last September, he was injured with a lap and a half to run and finished 14th in 4:11.23.

“I’ve made some choices this season that have created plenty of noise, but I’ve always wanted to prove myself in the biggest races, against the best in the world,” Kerr said in the announcement. “Budapest gives me another opportunity to do that, and I’m coming to compete for the win.”

Ingebrigtsen had Achilles surgery in February and did not race until Aug. 10, when he won a fourth consecutive European 5,000m title in Birmingham in 13:15.29. His first 1,500m of the year came on Sunday at the Silesia Diamond League, where he finished fourth in 3:31.19, 0.42 behind Ethan Strand. Tokyo was his only outdoor competition of 2025: he went out in the 1,500m heats there, then finished 10th in the 5,000m final in 13:02.00, the race Cole Hocker won. He was already entered in the Budapest 5,000m, which the event’s Olympic champion receives automatically, so he now has two finals, the 5,000m on Friday, Sept. 11, and the 1,500m 48 hours later.

“I love racing and I try to do as much as I can,” Ingebrigtsen said in the announcement.

Each man holds the faster career mark at one distance. Ingebrigtsen’s 3:26.73, run in Monaco in July 2024, makes him the fourth-fastest man in history at the distance, 0.89 clear of Kerr’s 3:27.62. Kerr’s mile mark is 1.07 faster than Ingebrigtsen’s 3:43.73, which had stood third all time until July and now sits fourth. They have shared five global 1,500m finals since Doha in 2019. Ingebrigtsen came home ahead of Kerr in the first three and Kerr in the last two, and no more than 1.13 seconds has separated them in any of the five. The most recent was Paris on Aug. 6, 2024, Kerr second in 3:27.79, Ingebrigtsen fourth in 3:28.24, 768 days before the Budapest final.

Cole Hocker and Isaac Nader both qualified outright. Hocker, the Paris champion, was disqualified from his Tokyo 1,500m semifinal for contact in the home straight and finished third at Silesia on Sunday, 0.03 ahead of Ingebrigtsen. Nader won the Tokyo title in 3:34.10 by 0.02 from Jake Wightman.

Ingebrigtsen is due back over 1,500m on Aug. 27 at Weltklasse Zürich, where Hocker and Nader are also entered. Entry lists will be confirmed by World Athletics in the first week of September. The men’s 1,500m final runs third from last on the closing night, Sunday, Sept. 13, ahead of the two 200m finals.