July 30, 2024

Josh Kerr Voted Captain of Team GB for Paris Olympics

Courtesy of New Mexico Athletics

UNM alumnus Josh Kerr has been named captain of Team GB’s athletics team, as voted on by his teammates representing Great Britain at the Paris Olympics.

After winning his first World Championship in the 1,500m last fall in Budapest, Kerr will square off again with his archrival Jakob Ingebrigtsen of Norway, who won gold in the event in Tokyo while Kerr took home bronze in his first Olympics. Kerr’s bronze made him the only British man to medal in athletics (track & field) in the Tokyo Olympics.

Competition in the men’s 1,500m kicks off on August 2 with the First Round.

“Congratulations to Josh for receiving this honor from his team-mates for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games,” said Olympic Head Coach at UK Athletics, Paula Dunn. “It is testament to his character and the way he carries himself that they’ve voted for him to take this role.”

In the year since his first world title, Kerr set the indoor two-mile world record (8:00.67) at the 2024 Millrose Games and defeated Jakob Ingebrigtsen again in a highly-anticipated Mile race at the Prefontaine Classic earlier this spring, clocking 3:45.24 for a new British record.

Kelati will be making her Olympics debut for Team USA after becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen in June 2021, changing her national sports allegiance from Eritrea to the United States. Even though she’d already secured the Olympic 10,000m Standard earlier in March, she left nothing to chance with an epic kick at the U.S. Olympic Trials to hold off Parker Valby and Karissa Schweizer down the stretch, finishing in 31:41.07 to win her first U.S. title and punch her ticket to Paris.

During his time at UNM, Kerr won NCAA individual titles in the Indoor Mile (2017 & 2018) and the Outdoor 1,500m (2017). Kelati won an NCAA title in the Outdoor 10,000m in 2019 before winning an NCAA Cross Country Championship in the Fall of 2019, wrapping up her Lobo career as the most decorated athlete in program history with 13 All-American honors.

“I’m truly honoured with the trust shown by my teammates to lead us into these Games. I want to be a supporter for the most experienced and an open book for our first timers, and do all I can to help us win those percentage battles over the next couple of weeks.

“Us athletes have had the best of the best support staff and set-up provided to us in preparing for these Games and we want to repay that with our performances out there next week.”

Below is the schedule for potential events in which Kerr will compete, starting off with the first round of the Men’s 1,500m: