Josh Kerr shattered the 27-year-old world record in the mile at the London Diamond League on Saturday, July 18, 2026. The 28-year-old Scottish runner, Olympic silver medallist and 2023 world champion, clocked 3:42.66, beating Moroccan Hicham El Guerrouj's mark of 3:43.13 set in 1999.
Record-breaking performance at London Stadium
Completing four laps at the London Stadium in front of a capacity crowd of approximately 60,000, Kerr looked jubilant as he crossed the finishing line. Decked out in a custom Brooks speed suit and spikes, he finished well ahead of Paris 2024 1500m bronze medallist Yared Nuguse, who was second in 3:45.69, while Briton Jake Heyward rounded out the podium in a personal-best 3:46.73.
Kerr had announced his intention in March to break the record, branding the attempt "Project 222"—a nod to the number of seconds it takes to run a 3:42.00 mile, his ambitious target. His previous personal best, the 3:45.34 British record he set at the Prefontaine Classic in 2024, was 2.21 seconds slower than El Guerrouj's mark.
Training and preparation
The Scot made a similar statement of intent months before breaking Sir Mo Farah's indoor two-mile record in February 2024, and said he had not missed a training session in the build-up to this attempt. On Friday evening, Kerr revealed via his YouTube channel that he had run a hand-timed 1200m split of 2:42.45 at 5,335 feet of elevation in Albuquerque in a recent training session, though it was with a flying start.
It was nevertheless 3.989 seconds faster than El Guerrouj at the same point in his world record race, and 2.3 seconds faster than the Moroccan's split—believed to have been the fastest recorded at 1200m—when he attempted to break his own record in 2002.
British legacy in the mile
Kerr's achievement brings the mile world record back into British hands, after Roger Bannister famously became the first person to run under four minutes in 1954. Fellow Britons Steve Cram, Steve Ovett and Sebastian Coe also held the record.
