For Britain to win two consecutive men’s 1500m world titles is impressive.  

For Scotland to do it is remarkable. 

For Edinburgh to do it is incredible. 

And for one particular athletics club, Edinburgh AC, to do it is almost unimaginable. 

I say almost because it happened this week. 

When Josh Kerr crossed the line in Budapest on Wednesday evening, leading home a field that included one of the true superstars of contemporary track and field athletics, Jakob Ingebrigtsen, to win the world 1500m title, the most astonishing feat was accomplished. 

Anyone who had suggested a decade ago that two Scottish men, never mind two from the same club, would win back-to-back world athletics titles would have been laughed out of town. 

So to watch it happen this week when Kerr replicated Jake Wightman’s gold medal-winning run from last year was astounding. 

It’s been clear for quite some time that this is a golden generation for Scottish athletics.  

It’s perhaps even the most golden of generations. 

From Laura Muir to Eilish McColgan to Wightman to Kerr, the number of athletes who are not only capable of competing with the world’s very best but also beating them on the very biggest stages of them all is something that happens so very rarely within Scotland. 

For it to be happening in a sport like track and field, which is one of the most widely participated-in sports on the planet – over 200 nations competed at these World Championships in Budapest – is remarkable. 

But for all the astonishing success of this group of athletes, Wightman and now Kerr stand alone as major global champions.  

If these two results, just a year apart, by two men who grew up only a few miles from each other and who trained and raced alongside each other before they had even reached their teens, had been achieved by a duo from a country such as Sweden, Belgium or the Netherlands, we’d all be screaming that those within the governing body should be on the first plane over there to observe, and then basically steal, their methods, their development strategies and their training plans. That would be an entirely understandable and frankly, sensible thing to do. 

But we don’t need to steal anything; this is happening right here in Scotland. 

When Wightman won his world title last year, I hailed it as one of the greatest stand-alone sporting achievements ever by a Scot. 

It was, I believed, up there with Andy Murray winning Wimbledon, Celtic winning the European Cup and anything else you can think of. 

I stand by that, and exactly the same has to be said for Kerr’s gold medal run. 

That there are so many parallels between Wightman and Kerr’s victories both on the night and in the pair’s early years is remarkable. 

Both men were born and brought up in Edinburgh, raced for the same club – Edinburgh AC - and developed within the Scottish athletics system. Before they were even teenagers, the pair were racing alongside each other and as junior runners, both produced outstanding results and showed precocious levels of talent. 

The duo were underdogs for the world title, with last year and this year the heavy favourite being the Norwegian, Ingebrigtsen. And both men won the race in almost identical fashion; outsprinting Ingebrigtsen over the last 200m. 

There are, however, differences between Wightman and Kerr; the former has remained in Britain, bar training camps, whereas Kerr relocated to America aged just 17 and came through the US college system. Wightman, outwardly anyway, is particularly understated whereas Kerr is more comfortable voicing his lofty ambitions end expectations of himself. 

But there’s more than one way to skin a cat and both Wightman and Kerr have found the path that has led them to become world champion. 

Something of this magnitude – Scottish athletes winning two consecutive men’s world 1500m titles – cannot strictly be planned. 

There is some element of luck required to produce two truly world-class athletes and two of Scotland’s best-ever simultaneously. In the same way that Scotland is unlikely to see another Andy Murray for generations, or perhaps ever, it’s also unlikely that Wightman and Kerr’s feat will be repeated while any of us are still alive. Indeed, it’s likely it’ll never be repeated. 

That, however, says much more about the calibre of this achievement than it says about the production line of track athletes in this country. 

A governing body cannot plan to produce athletes who will become world champion. So much goes into such an achievement - the athlete’s talent, their commitment level, the standard of coaching and soundness of the guidance they’re afforded, as well as a slice of luck – that nothing of this magnitude can possibly be determined for certain in advance. 

What can, however, be planned, is that the opportunity is presented for athletes to reach this level. 

It cannot be disputed that this opportunity has been there for Kerr and Wightman and remains there for young, up and coming athletes within Scotland. 

This success has not come overnight; it must be noted that both Kerr and Wightman, along with Neil Gourley, who finished ninth behind Kerr in the final in Budapest earlier this week, have been consistently reaching major championships finals since 2019, when all three contested the World Championships final in Doha. 

The natural progression is not, necessarily, to go on to be world champion. In fact, most athletes who reach major championships finals never progress to the top step of the podium. 

That Scotland found one in Wightman last year was astonishing. That we now have two, with Kerr’s phenomenal win a few days ago, is monumental. 

Every Scot, never mind athletics fan, should savour this current era of the sport. Because success on this scale is almost impossible to replicate.