'I don't want to be on a yoghurt pot': Meet Josh Kerr, Britain's reluctant Olympic hero

Win an Olympic athletics medal for Great Britain, and certain things will surely follow: TV talk-show appearances, magazine photoshoots, yoghurt endorsement deals - these are the trappings that come with success on the sport’s biggest stage.

Well, not always. The exception is Josh Kerr, who rose without trace to claim bronze in Tokyo last summer, following in the footsteps of Seb Coe, Steve Ovett and Steve Cram by returning Britain to the men’s 1,500 metres podium for the first time since 1988.

Few outside of the sport had heard of him then, and nobody - in Britain at least - has heard from him since. Kerr, 24, prefers the quiet life, and his outing in the Birmingham Diamond League on Saturday will be only his second ever race on the sport’s premier international circuit.

In fact, he barely competes much at all. Based in Seattle since moving to the United States on an athletics scholarship from the University of New Mexico, the Scot prefers to keep things low-key, racing at just a handful of smaller American meets each year before trying his luck at major championships.

Having finished sixth at the 2019 World Championships, he duly took his career to the next level in Japan before retreating to his life of relative anonymity. The question is, when British athletics successes are so rare, why does he not want to cash in?

“I’m not looking to be on any yoghurts,” Kerr tells Telegraph Sport, reflecting on the commercial deals signed by some other high-profile British athletes. “These are personal decisions. It’s not like you automatically have to do these things.

“There are opportunities that arise for certain athletes who get to the calibre of winning Olympic medals, but it’s my job to turn up to major championships and help GB with the medal count. That’s what I’m in the sport to do, that’s my goal.

“There’s money that gets thrown around for other stuff, but it’s not something that interests me. I’m not here to get famous, I’m here to race.

“All athletes are different and I think people like to put specific athletes in a cookie cutter: ‘You have to do this, you have to do that’. No, you don’t have to do anything.

“We have to turn up to the British Championships and qualify - that’s about it, really. Everything else is your own preference. It’s an individual sport and that’s what I’ve chosen to do. I’ve got the [Olympic] medal, what else do I really want from it?”

'You want to see who the best are and what that's like'

It does not take long speaking to Kerr to gain a sense of his determination, bordering on obstinacy, that has propelled him to the top of his field.

Of his decision to leave Edinburgh and move across the Atlantic as a teenager, he simply says he “trusted [his] gut”, adding: “You want to see who the best are and see what that’s like.”

After graduating, he eschewed some of the better-known training groups because he wanted to ensure he was not tarnished by any doping associations. “It’s a group that’s honest and hard-working, with no question marks,” he said of his training set-up with Brooks Beasts.

He has little interest in conversation about the latest spikes technology or fast tracks, as there is nothing he can do about either.

Statistics show he is the only person in the top 35 of Britain’s all-time Under-13 1,500m rankings ever to make it to world-class level as an adult.

He insists it is no fluke, crediting his Scotland A-team rugby player father John with aiding his development and that of his brother Jake, who plays rugby for Bristol Bears and earned a Scotland cap in the 2019 Six Nations.

“By 13, I knew I was going to be a professional sportsperson, I just didn’t know what sport it would be,” said Kerr. “I played a lot of sports: rugby, ran track, rowing, football. Then they started falling off one by one until I was left with running.

“I was lucky enough to have smart parents who knew that over-training for an Under-13 record is not a smart thing to do.

“I only just snuck onto those Under-13 rankings. It’s not about being the record holder each year, it’s about being the overall record holder.”

He almost is. Having broken the British indoor 1,500m and mile records this winter, Kerr now has sights set on surpassing Mo Farah, the only British man to run an outdoor 1,500m faster than him.

That is one of his two goals for the summer. The other is to gain revenge at the World Championships over Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Timothy Cheruiyot, the two men who beat him at the Olympics. One thing not lacking is belief.

Immediately after making the podium in Tokyo, Kerr spoke of his success in a laughably matter-of-fact manner: “When you become Edinburgh champion, East of Scotland champion, Scottish champion, British champion, European [junior] champion, come to the US and dominate the NCAA [college circuit], the only thing left is to do what you do on the world stage.”

Coming third was the first step, but he is adamant there is more. “I never dreamt of being an Olympic bronze medallist,” he said. “I dreamt of being an Olympic gold medallist.

“It was the highlight of my career and now it’s just got me hungry to go after bigger and better things. Someone’s going to have to win the Olympics and World Championships. Why not me?”