“Josh Kerr’s ducking”;“Jakob Ingebrigtsen still would have run”- Fans react as Olympian opts out of Wanamaker Mile at Millrose Games

Fans have shared their reactions to the 1500m World champion and two-time Olympic medalist, Josh Kerr, opting out of the Wanamaker Mile at the 2025 Millrose Games. He was set to make his 2025 season debut in the mile event at the sixth World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting of the year.

As fans eagerly anticipated seeing the British middle-distance runner in action, Chris Chavez, founder of Citius Mag, broke the news via X (Twitter) that Kerr would not be competing in the event. His name was also absent from the official runners’ list on the event's website, which includes those set to compete later today at 5:51 PM (Eastern Time).

Following Kerr's withdrawal, one of the fans suggested that if Jakob Ingebrigtsen was there, he would have run irrespective of the circumstances, saying:

"Jakob still would have run…."

Another fan believed that Kerr withdrew from the Millrose Games deliberately because he didn’t want to compete against strong opponents, writing:

“PU**Y!!! He’s ducking!!!!”

A fan, however, showed their disappointment with their tweet.

“Nooooooooooooooo”, they wrote.

Following are some more fan reactions after Josh Kerr dropped out of the race -

“Pain”, a fan chimed in.

“Being scared of [Yared] Nuguse is not an illness”, another fan reacted as they believed it was because of the Olympic bronze medalist who was expected to give him a tough challenge.

“Really a shame 😕”, a fan commented.

Josh Kerr explains why he’s sharing more of his life and training insights on new platform

Josh Kerr at Paris Olympics (Photo: Getty Images)

Josh Kerr shared his reason for starting a YouTube channel to give deeper insights into his track career and goals. In an interview with LetsRundotcom on February 7, the 2023 global champion in the 1500m explained his decision:

“I think from a YouTube perspective for me it's, ‘Can I give more insight into what I'm doing?’ And I believe I could. I think I'm not great at social media, but I thought, you know, it's a good time in the sport to show what you're doing. And I think I'm a little bit different and do things a little bit more different than my competitors, so it's always good to have different perspectives.”

Kerr mentioned the other reasons behind it was he wanted to show the young athletes a different perspective on what it takes to be successful and update his own family about his track-related contents, stating:

“I think the kids coming up will only see one thing and so I was hopefully going to show a different side of what you can do to try and be successful in this sport. And, you know, I want to tell a little bit more about my story and also it means that my family can see what I'm doing.”

So far, Kerr has posted two videos titled - Week in Life of a World Champion and Inside the Process: Signing 10-Year Deal with Brooks on his YouTube channel.