Josh Kerr vows to use SPOTY snub to fire bid to add Olympic gold to world title

14 December 2023 , 18:25

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“I will continue to push for these moments. When it’s deemed good enough for Sports Personality of the Year hopefully I’ll be there representing athletics.” (Image: PA)

Josh Kerr has vowed to use his Sports Personality of the Year snub as motivation to add Olympic gold to his world title.

Britain’s 1500 metres world champion is the shock omission from the shortlist for next Tuesday’s prestigious annual awards. Britain’s only track world champion in the biggest Olympic sport had been more than hopeful of a nomination - seven months before the Paris Games.

He had booked and paid for transatlantic flights from his US training base to be at the glittering ceremony in Salford. But Katarina Johnson-Thompson, the one other British gold medalist in Budapest, was the only athlete to get the nod.

Kerr, 26, spoke of his “massive” disappointment - “I hoped to get my flights covered to be honest!” - but said he would use it as fuel to get him onto the Paris podium.

“I’ve been honoured in a number of ways but you think about the ones you don’t get,” he said. “I’ve not been shortlisted so I’m adding it to the list of things I’d like to do.

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“I will continue to push for these moments. When it’s deemed good enough for Sports Personality of the Year hopefully I’ll be there representing athletics.”

Kerr says he will still attend the ceremony to support fellow world champion Katarina Johnson-Thompson (Getty Images)

Kerr insists he will still attend the ceremony to represent his sport as he did so magnificently in Hungary, when toppling middle-distance great Jakob Ingebrigtsen “I’m not sitting here crying about it,” he said. “KJT had such an amazing comeback from 2019, I’ll be proud to be there to support her.”

Kerr's snub left the president of World Athletics dumbfounded. “Are you having a laugh, #SPOTY?” Seb COE tweeted on seeing a shortlist featuring contenders with lesser achievements to their name. “World champion in the biggest global sporting event of 2023.”

Dumbfounded: World Athletics president Seb Coe (Getty Images for World Athletics)

Others also had strong claims, not least Ros Canter, the equestrian star who this year won Badminton and was crowned European individual and team eventing champion.

Kerr added: “I’m in a very cut and dried sport, you’re fast enough, you run a qualifying time, you get into the event. Not a lot of things throughout my whole career have been dependent on the judgement of others. I’ve always been taught to leave no doubt out there but obviously I left a bit of doubt, so that’s the reality.

“I have earned everything I have got in my career up to this point, and I am going to earn the right to be in that conversation - and will show that through performance and mental resilience.”

Alex Spink