While Kerr’s statement about the Olympics carrying more weight than World Indoors is undeniable, the rationale for potentially sitting out a global championship really doesn’t. With 152 days between the conclusion of World Indoors in Glasgow, and the first round of the 1500m in Paris, it’s a little silly to hear Kerr say he can’t peak twice five months apart. After all, the amount of time between his season ending win at the 2023 Fifth Avenue Mile and his world record at Millrose, is nearly the exact same at 154 days.

Fortunately, Kerr has recently announced that he is reversing course and will be contesting the 3000m in Glasgow, but the host team is not without notable absences. Keely Hodgkinson, Dina Asher-Smith, and Katarina Johnson-Thompson are all skipping the event to focus on their Olympic preparations.

Every time that World Indoors and the Olympics have been held in the same year, there are multiple athletes that win gold medals at both, and often one that uses a breakout win at World Indoors as a springboard to their first Olympic medal later that summer. Below are examples of exactly that in each of the four occasions that the events have overlapped on the calendar.

2004: Meseret Defar

In her first year racing senior championships on the track, a 19-year-old Defar earned a bronze medal at the 2003 World Indoor Championships, but failed to make the final of the 5000m outdoors, displaying both her talent and inexperience on the national stage. Defar opened her 2004 championship season returning to World Indoors and in a tactical race, kicked down defending indoor 3000m and outdoor 10,000m champ Berhane Adere.

Come outdoor season, Defar finished sixth and third in her first two 5000m races of the summer, the first of which came behind a world record run by Turkey’s Elvan Abeylegesse. By August, Defar was peaking once again for the Olympics. She won the second heat of the 5000m in Athens, and was one of the favorites heading into the final. Through a tactical first 2000m Defar leaned on her newly developed championship experience, and although she went into the final lap five seconds behind the lead, she sprinted to a comfortable three second win, while the world record holder Abeylegesse finished 12th. In fact, only three women who lined up for the 5000m final also ran at World Indoors in Budapest in March, and all three of them finished in the top five in Athens.

Similarly, a pair of young Russian athletes, 22-year-old Yelena Slesarenko (high jump) and 21-year-old Yelena Isinbayeva (pole vault), won their first global medals with gold at World Indoors in 2004, and followed it up with Olympic gold later that year.

2008: Bryan Clay

In 2004, 24-year-old Bryan Clay set a personal best in the decathlon at the Olympics, but it wasn’t enough to unseat world record holder Roman Šebrle, who turned in an Olympic record score. Clay settled for silver. This was déjà vu for Clay, who led Šebrle heading into the final discipline of the pentathlon at the 2004 World Indoor Championships. Despite Clay posting a personal best in the 1000m and coming away with a personal best overall score, Šebrle finished 10 seconds ahead of him, finishing with a European record score, and the overall win.

Clay would defeat Šebrle for gold at the 2005 World Championships, but the Czech returned to take the title in 2007 as Clay struggled through the competition with injury. Headed into the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, Šebrle was 33 years old, but clearly still at a high level with a Wall Street Journal panel dubbing him the “World’s Greatest Athlete.”

Clay, however, was the man that triumphed at the World Indoor Championships in Valencia, with Šebrle dropping out of the competition five disciplines in. History would once again repeat itself with Clay dominating the decathlon in Beijing. Earning silver was Belarusian Andrei Krauchanka, who won the same medal at the indoor championships earlier that year. Šebrle would finish a distant fifth.

As a matter of fact, in all four years that the World Indoor Championships and Olympic Games were held together, the pentathlon winner in the winter would go on to win the decathlon in the summer, with Ashton Eaton, following tradition in 2012 and 2016.

2012: Aries Merritt

Despite being the 2006 NCAA Indoor champion in the event, Merritt was not known for his 60m hurdles speed. Of all the 100m hurdles world record holders, Merritt has the slowest 60m hurdles PB since 1989. While 2012 represented a breakout year for Merritt, it did not come before a number of shortcomings.

Merritt became a world junior champion in 2004 at age 18, but he wouldn’t make his first final of a senior championship until seven years later. Merritt finished fourth at the Olympic Trials in 2008, and when he made Team USA for the 2009 World Championships, he failed to make it out of the heats

At the start of 2011, Merritt made a point to improve his indoor times, and set a personal best in the 60m hurdles for the first time since his NCAA title in 2006. The results showed in the outdoor season as Merritt made the final at the World Championships in Daegu, but couldn’t break all the way through, crossing the line sixth.

Merritt invested in the indoor season once again in 2012, winning his first senior U.S. title and qualifying for the World Indoor Championships in Istanbul. Merritt’s World Championship win was only his second 60m hurdles victory of the season, but it was enough to earn him a gold medal and a whole lot of momentum.

Merritt’s encore outdoors represented by far the best stretch of his career. He won 17 of his 21 110m hurdles races, took home his second U.S. title at the Olympic Trials, and earned a gold medal at the London Olympics in convincing fashion, taking down a field that included the last three global champions. One month after the Games, Merritt was still riding high, and ended his season with a world record clocking (12.80) that still stands today.