The pair are set to face off as teammates at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow this summer, racing over a mile to join a legendary collection of champions over the distance.
Styles make fights in boxing and the same is true of Scotland ’s two world champion middle distance runners, Jake Wightman and Josh Kerr.
The pair are set to face off as teammates at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow this summer, racing over a mile to join a legendary collection of champions over the distance.
It will be the first time the mile has been raced at the Commies since Kip Keino catapulted Kenyan running into the big time in 1966, following in the footsteps of Antipodean pair Herb Elliott and Peter Snell, as well as the one and only Roger Bannister.
With 100 days to go until the action kicks off in Glasgow, Wightman is relishing the chance to compete at a fourth Games back in the city where he made his debut.
But where Kerr is always willing to talk the talk – boldly targeting Hicham El Guerrouj’s mile world record at the London Diamond League – Wightman has always taken a more measured approach.
In typically self-aware fashion, he knows that the Moroccan’s mark, set back in 1999, is beyond his reach. But when it comes to racing, the 31-year-old is equally confident that he can go toe-to-toe with anyone in the world.
“You wouldn’t get to the point in the sport that we’ve got to if you don’t believe in yourself completely, but my thing is that I’d rather just let my legs on the track do the talking,” said Wightman, who co-owns Last Rep Coffee, who have partnered with Team Scotland ahead of the Games.
“So, I think rather than speaking about what I’m going to do, the only thing I can do is prove it by racing well. It’s just not my personality to talk myself up too much. I just crack on with it, and I don’t think people shouldn’t do that, because it is a great thing for it.
“I would find a mile world record attempt pretty tough and I think Josh will obviously find it tough, but if he does it, it’s an amazing achievement because that is a world record stood for a long time and you’ve got to be very, very good at just running hard on your own to be able to do that.
“I can honestly say, I don’t think I’m the type of athlete that has that sort of running in me. I love the competition side of it, so I really, really need people around to race against. It’s just there’s something about the motivation of other people around you that really pulls the best out of me.”
Wightman and Kerr will forever be linked, the latter having succeeded the former as world champion over 1500m in 2023, 12 months after Wightman’s magical success in Eugene, Oregon.
The aftermath of that world title for Wightman has been well-documented, a succession of injuries ruining not only the defence of his global crown but also cruelly denying him an Olympic shot in Paris two years ago.
Such was the frustration at his body letting him down, that Wightman considered calling it a day with 2026 earmarked as a fitting swansong as he went full circle in Glasgow.
But the last 12 months have changed all that. A change of coach – splitting with father Geoff – and respite from the injury bug allowed Wightman to perform in a global final for the first time since the summer he was crowned world champion. He came within 0.02 seconds of doing it again, eventually taking silver in Tokyo behind Portugal’s Isaac Nader last September.
It was a run that allowed him to believe in himself once more, making this return to Glasgow both an objective in itself but also another stepping stone towards his Olympic goal in Los Angeles in 2028.
He added: “I think the main thing that the summer did was it just gave me the reassurance that I wasn’t delusional about where I could get back to, I believed that I could get back to being one of the competitors for global titles and winning medals. And that didn’t seem like it was potentially true until last summer. Now I believe I still have my best running and I’m at the level that I want to be still.
“I can’t live the rest of my career scared of getting hurt again, because otherwise I’ll never reach the points I want to get to. I think a lot of it was I got off that conveyor belt of injury after injury.”
Twelve years ago, Wightman made his Commonwealth debut when he had just turned 20 and did not make it out of the heats. He is now gearing up to return as the wily old racer with a chance to join some of the greatest to ever do it in the history books, and yet that is not what drives him.
He added: “I think that it’s not even winning Commonwealths and being part of those lists, it’s winning a title in a Scotland vest, that’s the thing that motivates me the most. Being able to do that, especially in Scotland and then having Flower of Scotland playing. I think that’s probably the biggest motivation for me.”
Between Wightman and Kerr, there is every chance that Flower of Scotland will ring out at Scotstoun Stadium to celebrate the mile victor. Which one triumphs may come down to the style of the fight.
Follow Team Scotland’s journey at Glasgow 2026 at @team_scotland on Instagram