Josh Kerr surges to world indoor gold and makes ‘night night’ gesture at rival
Brilliance and controversy are never far apart when it comes to Josh Kerr.It is what makes him such a compelling athlete.And after storming to a thrilling world indoor 3,000m title here in Torun, the Briton was quick to apply a sharp twist of the knife.As he crossed the line, Kerr made NBA star Steph Curry’s famous ‘night night’ celebration, putting both hands against his cheek to signify that he had put his opponent – in this case the Olympic 1500m champion Cole Hocker – to sleep.In fairness to Kerr, his American rival had made the same gesture after beating him last month at the Millrose Games – which made revenge when it mattered all the sweeter.
“I think he’s done such a great job the last couple of years,” said Kerr.“But I just thought, let him know that that was a huge motivational thing for me.Millrose was a big deal, but this is the North Star.”Hocker acknowledged that losing and Kerr’s gesture had stung but promised his own payback.“I can’t even be that mad,” he said.
“I flexed him at Millrose.All I can say is at least come up with your own celebration.But I’ll remember that one, for sure.”This men’s 3,000m had been billed as the race of the championships, with all three 1500m medallists from the Paris Olympics going mano a mano once more.It was never going to live up to that epic, but it was still one heck of a race.
Kerr was not where he wanted to be for much of it,For the first two kilometres he was thinking to himself how much his coach, Danny Mackay, would be mad at him,While the Ethiopians Addisu Yihune and Getnet Wale pushed the train, Hocker and the Paris bronze medallist Yared Nuguse sat primed in third and fourth, while Kerr was behind them in sixth,As the Ethiopians tired, Kerr moved out and struck on the penultimate lap while Hocker suddenly found himself boxed in,The American closed the gap in the final 100m but had left himself too much to do.
“All I was saying to myself in the race was ‘Danny’s going to be so mad at my positioning,’” said Kerr, who won in 7mins 35.56sec.“I just had to be really calm in the chaos and just relax.People watching, that it is not how you win a world medal.“It’s a game of chess.
Cole is so good and Yared so good that over the last kilometre you have to play your hand as confidently as you can and not give an inch,”Hocker took silver 0,24sec back, with the Frenchman Yann Schrub claiming bronze, but afterwards Kerr said he wasn’t sure how far Hocker was behind him as the stadium scoreboard wasn’t showing it,“I felt like I had good power in the last 100m but it would have been nice to watch it,” said Kerr,“Because when I went, it was a little early but I had some juice in me in the last 100m so I was happy.
”It meant that Kerr, who limped out of the 1500m world championships final in Tokyo last September with a calf injury, had regained the world title that he won in Glasgow in 2024.And afterwards he paid tribute to his mum, Jill, for helping to get him back in prime shape.“From where we were in Tokyo, it’s all down to coaching, and its down to my phsyio, my mum,” he said.“I’m extremely lucky, because she has written textbooks on physiotherapy.She is incredible.
And for her to start to slow down with her professional career and to follow me around and help me out as much as possible has got me to this spot today.”The British team had hoped for a second medal on the second day of these championships after Dina Asher-Smith equalled her British record of 7.03sec in the 60m semi-finals.However, she failed to make her customary lightning start in the final and could finish only seventh in 7.07 behind the Italian Zaynab Dosso, who took gold in 7.
00.Two prime chances lie ahead on the final day for Britain to add to their tally, with Keely Hodgkinson in the 800m and Georgia Hunter-Bell in the 1500m, favourites for gold.Elsewhere there was a world record in the men’s heptathlon as Simon Ehammer scored 6,670 points to beat Ashton Eaton’s record set in 2014 by 25 points.Mondo Duplantis predictably won the men’s pole vault with a 6.25m clearance but the Swede was unable to get his 16th world record while the home crowd left happy after Poland’s Jakub Syzmanski won gold in the men’s 60m hurdles.
Two of the more striking victories came in the 400m.Canada’s Christopher Morales Williams smashed the championship record to win gold in 44.76 ahead of his American rival Khaleb McRae in 45.03 and 20-year-old Czech athlete Lurdes Gloria Manuel underlined her enormous promise by beating a strong field to her first senior title in 50.76.
UK government yet to trial OpenAI tech months after signing partnership
When the UK government signed a memorandum of understanding with OpenAI, the tech firm behind ChatGPT, the partnership was hailed as one that could harness artificial intelligence to “address society’s greatest challenges”.But eight months on from the fanfare of that announcement, the government has yet to hold any trials involving the firm’s tech.A freedom of information (FoI) request asked the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) for information about trials conducted under the memorandum, which said the company would work with civil servants to “identify opportunities for how advanced AI models can be deployed throughout government and the private sector”.The department replied that it held none of this information and had “not undertaken any trials under the memorandum of understanding with OpenAI”.In response to a query from the Guardian, DSIT pointed to an agreement under which the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) last October enabled civil servants to use ChatGPT “with an option for UK-based data storage for customers”
Tory peer accuses Nick Timothy of ‘instilling fear’ over Islamic prayers
The shadow justice secretary, Nick Timothy, has been accused by a Conservative peer and former counter-extremism minister of “instilling fear” among Muslims with his comments about public prayer.British Muslims were openly talking about leaving the Conservative party, added Tariq Ahmad, who said he had raised his concerns with the party leadership and expected action to be taken.“I have known Nick for a long time and am deeply disappointed by his divisive comments. He needs to reflect carefully on his own words,” Lord Ahmad told the Guardian.“If he is aspiring to be lord chancellor, he has to stand up for the principles of equality and justice before the law for all, that comes with that responsibility
Department of Health retracts claim sunbeds are as dangerous as smoking
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has had to retract a misleading claim that sunbeds are as dangerous a cancer risk as smoking.In January, health officials announced stricter rules for sunbeds, incorrectly claiming they were “as dangerous as smoking”. The comparison was repeated in social media posts shared by the health secretary and NHS England and was reported by a number of media outlets.But the factchecking organisation Full Fact said the claim was wrong, concluding “misleading information about the risk of cancer … risks making smoking seem less harmful than it is”.While both smoking and sunbeds cause cancer, the risks are not equal
More British teenagers stranded abroad as result of new rules on dual nationals
Two more British teenagers have found themselves unable to return to the UK because of new Home Office border rules on British dual nationals.Their cases emerged just hours after reports a 16-year-old British schoolgirl was blocked from boarding a flight in Denmark home to the UK because she was a dual national and did not have a British passport. She has missed two weeks of school so far.A 19-year-old student, Anna*, from Oxfordshire is stuck in Madrid after a university-organised trip to the Spanish capital.She is part French and had not yet obtained a British passport to comply with the new rules, which require British dual nationals to present a passport, new or expired, or certificate of entitlement to airlines before boarding flights to the UK
Is it time for the UK to acknowledge the ‘rhetoric to reality gap’ on its military power?
It will have been more than three weeks since the US and Israel first attacked Iran when the first British warship finally arrives off the coast of Cyprus, a belated defensive deployment that has highlighted the lack of military capacity available to the UK.Nominally, HMS Dragon was one of three destroyers available out of six. In reality the warship has had to be hauled out of dry dock, prepared and then, after launch, tested for several days in the Channel. Its arrival date is still unconfirmed.“It’s clear one of the military’s big problems is giving the government contingency options,” said Matthew Savill, of the Royal United Services Institute, reflecting years of spending constraints
Claimants drop lawsuit against Gerry Adams over IRA bombings
Three victims of IRA bombings who sued Gerry Adams alleging he was a member of the paramilitary group and culpable for the attacks have withdrawn their lawsuit on the last day of the civil trial.John Clark, Jonathan Ganesh and Barry Laycock, who were injured respectively in the 1973 Old Bailey bombing and the 1996 London Docklands and Manchester bombings, were seeking symbolic “vindicatory” damages of £1 each.They alleged that the former Sinn Féin leader, who is credited with helping to bring about the Northern Ireland peace process that ended the Troubles, was a member of the IRA and had sat on its army council. Adams denied being a member of the IRA or being involved in bombings.On Friday, the ninth and final day of the trial, the claimants’ lawyer, Anne Studd KC, was expected to finish her closing submissions, but she told the high court that the claim would be discontinued after “proceedings developed overnight”
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