Josh Kerr spells out ambitious target for London Diamond League's huge Battle of the Brits

Josh Kerr is aiming to obliterate the British 1500m record at Saturday's Novuna London Diamond League with the world champion claiming: “I’m not here for a slow race.”

And while the event's showpiece race was designed to be his latest duel with great rival Jakob Ingrebrigtsen, absent through injury, it has morphed into a tasty Battle of the Brits.

Kerr may be talking up his chances of lowering his national record of 3:27.79 but there are four other domestic competitors with eyes on first place and one in particular could push the Scot to his limits.

George Mills is in a purple patch having clocked 3:28.36 in Paris last month, putting himself between Kerr and Sir Mo Farah on the all-time list. That followed a 5000m time of 12:46.59 that, briefly, made him the second fastest European ever.

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But Kerr remains the alpha figure and is requesting a pace of 1:51 through 800m - and if he can maintain that he will blow his current mark out of the water.

“I’m here to win but I think I can run pretty fast,” Kerr said. “I would say go out be aggressive and see what we can come out with.

“That’s the idea, a British record would be great. But when you have a race like this, so packed with great athletes, the number one priority is to win and you’ll get a good enough time from that.”

Fellow Flying Scotsmen Jake Wightman, the 2022 world champion who has overcome a host of injuries in the past two years, and Neil Gourley, a silver medallist at the world indoors in March, appear in good shape two weeks out from the national championships.

Elliot Giles should not be discounted either.

“It’ll be an awesome race,” Kerr added. “I’m looking to put something on the leaderboard that will make me proud going into the world championships.”

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