Throughout Josh Kerr’s year of ­wonder, he has made the sublime look routine. So when the bell rang for the final lap of this men’s Ultimate Championship 1500m final, with the Scot in third and closing fast on the leader Yared Nuguse, the next 53 ­seconds seemed preordained.

Kerr first sauntered past ­Robert Farken into second. Then, with 250m remaining, he scootered past Nuguse. The 20-year-old Australian star Cam Myers tried to join the chase but he could not make a dent as Kerr protected a substantial lead to the ­finish.

As Kerr crossed the line in 3min 29.35sec, with Myers 0.33sec back, he cupped his hand to his ear. The sound he was hearing? The adoration of the crowd – and the kerching of the $150,000 (£111,000) first prize.

“To be honest, I didn’t feel ­amazing in the warmup,” Kerr said. “But these are the things you have to overcome. I knew I was going to be in with a shot. It was a case of not overpressing too early and leaving a couple of gears for the last lap.”

Asked about Myers, Kerr said: “He’s an awesome athlete but I was able to peek over the screen and see that the gap wasn’t changing. I pressed it again at 120m, and then the gap didn’t change, and I knew that at that point I had it.”

Kerr was 8-1 for a place in the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award on Sunday morning, which feels a little high given his awesome season. He has raced just twice indoors and six times outdoors. Yet he has broken the world mile record, set a personal best over 800m, won gold at the world indoor championships over 3,000m and the ­Commonwealth Games over 1500m, and now taken the Ultimate ­Championship trophy.

True, some would prefer him to race more. But it is hard to argue with Kerr’s decision to put quality over quantity.

While Kerr’s run was impressive, the performance of the night came from the American Melissa Jefferson-Wooden in the women’s 200m. Up against the 200m Olympic champion Gabby Thomas, Jefferson-Wooden ran 21.51 – the fourth-fastest time in history – into a -0.6 m/s headwind to triumph with Thomas second in 21.77. Britain’s Amy Hunt was fourth in a season’s best 22.10.

On the final day of the inaugural World Athletics Ultimate Champion­ship event, which have blended innovation and a big prize fund of $10m, there were spectacular ­displays wherever you looked.

Earlier, the new 400m hurdles world champion Alison Dos Santos ran the third fastest time in history, 45.98, against Rai Benjamin and Karsten Warholm. Incredibly, the trio now hold the fastest 38 times in history. “What we are doing is so important and so impressive that people sometimes take it for granted,” ­Benjamin said. “Karsten led the way to the world record, Alison followed up on it and this was an amazing performance from all three of us today.”

Warholm was back in action shortly afterwards in the mixed 4x400m relay, but he was only an onlooker as the USA team won, with Britain second and the Netherlands third. A ­brilliant final leg from Britain’s Charlotte Henrich gained three places and earned herself and her teammates $10,000 each as a result.

In the men’s javelin, Rumesh Pathirage capped a brilliant breakthrough season by throwing 91.09m to take first prize – and afterwards said that cricket had provided the mechanics to help him become the best in the world.

“I wanted to switch from a team to an individual sport – that’s why I changed from cricket to javelin,” he said. “I inputted almost all my technique from cricket into the javelin throw because there are some similarities.”

Elsewhere Marco Arop’s brave frontrunning tactics came just short of sealing victory in the men’s 800m. But the Canadian, who led from the gun to about 10m before the end, found himself overtaken by the Algerian Djamel Sedjati, who won in 1:41.91.

There were two other exceptional performances on the night. In the high jump, the Italian Gianmarco Tamberi jumped a world leading 2.37m to win, while in the men’s 200m Kenny Bednarek ran a world lead 19.52sec to beat the Olympic champion Letsile Tebogo, who ran 19.76 in second.