It can be hard sometimes to drum up much interest or excitement in any newly staged athletics event. One of the first people I spoke to about this weekend’s Ultimate Championship in Budapest responded by asking was that the one where they could take a load of drugs.I could hear the marketing people at World Athletics shuddering deep down inside – and maybe the organisers of the Enhanced Games (who do allow the drugs) having a laugh. Another person responded by assuming it was some new breakaway division of the UFC. Which may or may not be even more insulting.Anyway, by dangling a historically hefty $10 million prize purse – including $150,000 to each new “ultimate champion”, the single largest first-place prize the sport has ever seen – World Athletics has attracted most of its superstar names on the track and field. Or, in its own words, “the very best of the best”. This is not just about the taking part. It’s mostly all about winning. Fortunately for World Athletics, perhaps, some of those superstars aren’t content to let their running do all the talking. Nowhere is that more evident than in the men’s 1,500m, where, in Sunday evening’s straight final, Josh Kerr and Jakob Ingebrigtsen are set to renew their now-heated rivalry..“I wouldn’t like to race me right now,” Kerr said during the week. “I’m not going to lose. If you want to make it fast, if you want to make it slow, you’re going to be in trouble either way.”Exactly the sort of ego-driven bragging that’s sure to fire up Ingebrigtsen – who loves to give as good as he gets. The Norwegian only returned to racing at last month’s European Championships in Birmingham, winning the 5,000m just six months after undergoing surgery on his Achilles tendon. After that he also rekindled his gentle trash-talking of Kerr, who skipped Birmingham, when saying “it is ruining the sport if we are not participating ... but I could never see myself in that position.”Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen with his silver medal and Britain's Josh Kerr with gold following the Men's 1500m at the World Athletics Championships in 2023. Photograph: Martin Rickett/PA Wire In fairness to World Athletics, it bent its own rules to make sure this latest rematch could happen. No one I know is complaining. Kerr hasn’t raced over 1,500m so far this year, the British runner instead focusing his efforts on breaking the 27-year-old world record in the mile. Which he duly did, clocking 3:42.66 in London in July – before adding a Commonwealth Games mile title to his name a few weeks later.This meant neither Kerr nor Ingebrigtsen were entitled to any of the automatic invites to Budapest. One place had been set aside for “exceptional invitations”, although in this case World Athletics agreed on two, saying “this race could not in good faith be considered a full line-up of the greatest athletes on the planet without the inclusion of both Kerr and Ingebrigtsen”.So here we go again. They haven’t raced in each other in more than two years, and even though Ingebrigtsen holds a winning edge of 11-3 over Kerr across all distances, Kerr won three of their last four meetings – including gold at the 2023 World Championships, also staged in Budapest, then silver at the 2024 Paris Olympics, where Ingebrigtsen finished fourth.At last weekend’s Diamond League final in Brussels, Ingebrigtsen’s lack of racing seemed to show when he only managed fourth in the 1,500m. After that he called out some of his rivals as “losers”, who “acted cowardly” given the way they ran. He has since apologised for the “losers” part, but still said, “if you’re not allowed to show a bit of passion after a race, you should find a sport that doesn’t want an audience.”[ Ultimate Championship: What Irish athletes are competing in new $10m event, and where can you watch?Opens in new window ]Given all the talk this week about equity and equality between men and women in our own Gaelic games, it’s worth noting the absolute parity for both when it comes to World Athletics, including the Ultimate Championship. Better still, the women’s 200m final on Sunday evening, possibly featuring Rhasidat Adeleke if she can get through her semi-final, is the climax to the entire weekend.The race most people are probably anticipating is the women’s 800m, with that final set for Saturday evening. As a matter of fact, no event has evolved more dramatically this season, thanks in part to the sensational running of Audrey Werro, the 22-year-old from Switzerland who became only the third woman in history to run under 1:54.Audrey Werro of Switzerland crosses the finish line ahead of Britain's Keely Hodgkinson in the Women's 800m final at the European Athletics Championships August 14th. Photograph: Julian Finney/Getty Images The last woman to do that was Jarmila Kratochvílová, from the former Czechoslovakia, when running her world record of 1:53.28, back in 1983. That remains the longest-standing world record in the books, men or women, and whatever about its legitimacy, Werro is now coming within touching distance, improving her best again to 1:53.70 in Zurich last month.In between, Werro also won the European title in Birmingham, beating Britain’s Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson in the process. Hodgkinson had also started her season by breaking the indoor world record for 800m, which had stood since March 3rd, 2000, the day Hodgkinson was born.Also closing in fast on both Werro and Hodgkinson is Dutch superstar Femke Broeders-Bol, who has defied all expectations in her first season of two-lap racing, having moved up from the 400m hurdles. She finished just 0.06 behind Werro in last weekend’s Diamond League final in Brussels, and has run 1:54.71, itself a debut-season record.No need for any gentle trash-talking here. Werro has adopted a sort of lion’s roar gesture as her signature post-race celebration, as if unleashing her own fierce competitiveness. But unlike Kerr and Ingebrigtsen, they’ve all faced each other several times already this season, with their egos a lot more contained.Hodgkinson did miss the Brussels showdown through injury, and when asked this week was she 100 per cent recovered, she replied with a cheeky smile, “none of your business”.Maybe these three 800m women do prefer to let their running do all the talking, and no harm in that. Still, there is something irresistible about this latest Kerr-Ingebrigtsen showdown, given only one of them can ultimately aspire to Muhammad Ali’s old claim that “it ain’t bragging if you can back it up”.