Men's mile record broken for first time since 1999

Josh Kerr, the British runner who helped stoke a revival successful middle-distance play connected the track, added a caller section Saturday by moving the mile successful 3 minutes, 42.66 seconds to interruption the 27-year-old satellite grounds for the distance.

At a Diamond League conscionable successful London, Kerr broke Moroccan large Hicham El Guerrouj's people of 3 minutes, 43.13 seconds, acceptable successful Rome successful 1999. The 28-year-old autochthonal of Edinburgh celebrated with a thigh of grant astatine London Stadium.

"It was conscionable me, my shoes and the track," helium said. "I was perfectly deaf successful that past 110 meters."

Josh Kerr of Team Great Britain celebrates aft winning the 1 mile men's last and mounting a caller satellite grounds during the Novuna London Athletics Meet, portion of the 2026 Wanda Diamond League, astatine London Stadium connected July 18, 2026, successful London, England. Michael Steele / Getty Images

Kerr finished much than 3 seconds wide of American Yared Nuguse's second-place clip of 3:45.69.

In an interrogation with the BBC, Kerr said the assemblage enactment arsenic helium closed successful connected the grounds was "just incredible."

"I didn't instrumentality my ft disconnected the gas," helium continued, "but ... I started to glide and I was similar 'oh wow this feels incredible.' It's unthinkable due to the fact that I'm slowing down. So, I was similar 'I amended get to the line.' So, crossing the decorativeness line, seeing 42-something — thing — was my goal, truthful it was great."

The 28-year-old Kerr's erstwhile champion clip was 3:45.34 successful 2024.

Great Britain's Josh Kerr celebrates aft breaking a satellite grounds successful the men's 1 mile last during the Novuna London Athletics Meet astatine the London Stadium connected July 18, 2026.  Adam Davy/PA Images via Getty Images

Kerr, the 2023 satellite champion, and Jakob Ingebrigtsen, the 2021 Olympic champion, enactment a complaint successful the somewhat shorter but much wide contested 1,500-meter contention successful the leadup to the Paris Olympics. They went backmost and distant online and connected the way implicit a fig of issues, including Kerr's proposition that his rival could lone tally his apical times with the assistance of pacesetters, the likes of which aren't allowed astatine large championships.

When the Paris Games rolled around, Ingebrigtsen faded to 4th portion American Cole Hocker pulled a immense upset, with Kerr finishing second.

At the satellite championships past year, Ingebrigtsen faltered successful a preliminary vigor portion Kerr pulled up lame and limped into the decorativeness successful a last won by Issac Nader of Portugal.

This year, with nary worlds oregon Olympics connected the schedule, Kerr made the mile his cardinal target. It's a region that isn't tally arsenic overmuch successful large events but that inactive has large humanities significance, astir of it surrounding Roger Bannister's breaking of the once-intimidating four-minute obstruction successful 1954.

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