Josh Kerr has twin targets for the summer: World Championships gold and Mo Farah’s outdoor British 1500m record.
And the Edinburgh athlete, based in the USA, aims to top the podium in Oregon at world level and then at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.
“It’s all about the medal count this year,” the 24-year-old told BBC Scotland.
Kerr is embracing “being in the conversation” for world gold after shattering Peter Elliott’s British indoor mile record, as well as dipping below Eamonn Coghlan’s European mark with a stunning three minutes 48.87 seconds in Boston.
“It’s a big motivating factor for me,” he said. “It’s going to be a fantastic championships, hopefully surrounded by family and friends. That’s a big goal.
“I think it’s going to be a different kind of feel. Obviously, the Olympics is a bit more prestigious but if I can take that step to be world champion this year, then we’re really onto something.
“I’ve worked my whole career to get to these moments where I’m even in the conversation. I’ve always know I’ve been in the conversation but now external people are saying ‘ Josh actually has a chance’.
“I have a lot of belief in myself, things are going really well, I’m really happy where I’m at. I think it could all come together quite nicely actually.”
Just making the British team for Oregon might be tough, with stiff competition from fellow Scots Jake Wightman and Neil Gourley.
All three made the final of the last World Championships in Doha, with Wightman joining Kerr in the Olympic final last year in Tokyo.
“It’s a very exciting time,” added Kerr. “You never know what’s going to happen at the British trials and who we’re going to send this year but they’re going to be good enough to make it into the World Championship final and when you’ve got a quarter of the field being Scottish athletes, we’re going to put people on the podium, we’re going to get medals.
“The Scots are just a little bit better this year. We enjoy going toe to toe with people and we’re not scared of competition.”
Nor is Kerr scared of taking another scalp when it comes to British records.
“The next goal is the outdoor British record held by Mo Farah,” he explained. “I’m about 0.2 seconds off that.
“I don’t like to set limits on things. I think the Scottish record could be a world record indoors for the mile. We’re about 1.5 seconds off of that. We’re all pushing the boundaries so it would be pretty cool to see if we could get a world indoor record next year.”
