JOSH SPICE

Coe loves the trash-talking as Kerr faces 'special' 1500m showdown with rival Jakob

- MIKE WALTERS

SEBASTIAN COE cannot wait for Josh Kerr and Jakob Ingebrigtsen's 1500m rivalry to become the box-office needle match of Paris 2024.

As the track and field programme opens today at the Stade de France, Coe is relishing a battle "that's probably not a friendship made in heaven".

Back in the 1980s, Coe's duels with Steve Ovett were spikier than a hedgehog's overcoat and sustained a golden age of British athletics.

Now reigning world champion Kerr and arch-rival Ingebrigtsen, who won Olympic gold in Tokyo three years ago, will line up as favourites to slug it out for top step on the podium here.

Coe, holding court as president of World Athletics, tiptoed across the high-wire with the articulation of a diplomat but he recognises it could be the most exciting Anglo-Norwegian race since Roald Amundsen beat Captain Scott to the South Pole 113 years ago.