Josh Kerr topples the mile world record in London
The British runner clocked 3:42.66 at a Diamond League meet, beating Hicham El Guerrouj’s mark from 1999.
By Georgia Hale · Staff Writer
3 min read
Josh Kerr ripped through the mile in 3 minutes, 42.66 seconds on Saturday in London, breaking a men’s world record that had stood since 1999, according to CBS News.
The 28-year-old British runner beat the 3:43.13 set by Morocco’s Hicham El Guerrouj in Rome, CBS News reported. Kerr then took a lap of honor at London Stadium after the Diamond League race.
Kerr, from Edinburgh, won by a clear margin. CBS News reported that American Yared Nuguse finished second in 3:45.69, more than three seconds behind Kerr’s record run.
“It was just me, my shoes and the track,” Kerr said after the race, according to CBS News. “I was absolutely deaf in that last 110 meters.”
A big jump from his previous best
Kerr’s run cut a hefty chunk from his own mile best. CBS News reported that his previous fastest time over the distance was 3:45.34, set in 2024.
Speaking to the BBC after the race, Kerr said the noise and support from the crowd as he hunted the record was “just incredible.”
“I didn’t take my foot off the gas,” Kerr told the BBC, “but ... I started to glide and I was like ‘oh wow this feels incredible.’ It’s incredible because I’m slowing down. So, I was like ‘I better get to the line.’ So, crossing the finish line, seeing 42-something — anything — was my goal, so it was great.”
The mile does not appear as often as the 1,500 meters in the biggest track championships, but CBS News noted that it remains one of the sport’s most famous distances. Its place in athletics history is tied in part to Roger Bannister, who broke the four-minute barrier in 1954.
The rivalry that helped light up middle-distance running
Kerr, the 2023 world champion, has been one of the central figures in a recent burst of attention around middle-distance racing, CBS News reported.
Much of that attention has involved Kerr and Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen, the 2021 Olympic champion. According to CBS News, the two traded barbs online and on the track before the Paris Olympics, including over Kerr’s claim that Ingebrigtsen’s fastest times depended on pacesetters, who are not used at major championships.
At the Paris Games, Ingebrigtsen finished fourth while American Cole Hocker won in an upset, CBS News reported. Kerr took silver.
The following year at the world championships, CBS News reported, Ingebrigtsen stumbled in a preliminary heat, while Kerr pulled up injured and limped to the finish in a final won by Portugal’s Issac Nader.
With no world championships or Olympics on the calendar this year, CBS News reported that Kerr chose the mile as his major target. In London, he hit it with room to spare.
This story draws on original reporting from CBS News.