British runner Josh Kerr breaks world record for mile which stood for 27 years
news.sky.com95 points by austinallegro 7 hours ago
95 points by austinallegro 7 hours ago
Watch him do it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYi2f4ONEDg&t=180
What an incredible performance. I've seen a sub-4 mile in person. These guys are absolutely flying. All of them. And he beats the pants off that field.
Splits (400m):
400m: 55.3
800m: 1:51.1 (56.8 second lap)
1200m: 2:46.5 (55.4 second lap)
1600m: 3:41.4 (54.9 third lap)
Mile: 3:42.66
100m: 13.8
200m: 27.5 (13.7)
300m: 41.0 (13.5)
400m: 55.3 (14.3)
500m: 1:09.3 (14.0)
600m: 1:23.2 (13.9)
700m: 1:37.0 (13.8)
800m: 1:51.1 (14.1)
900m: 2:05.1 (14.0)
1000m: 2:18.8 (13.7)
1100m: 2:32.6 (13.8)
1200m: 2:46.5 (13.9)
1300m: 3:00.3 (13.8)
1400m: 3:14.0 (13.7)
1500m: 3:27.7 (13.7)
1600m: 3:41.4 (13.7)
Mile: 3:42.66 (1.2 for the final 9.34m)
Official results at https://london.diamondleague.com/programme-results/
Unfortunately you can't link directly to the 1 mile results. Scroll down to the table, select "1 Mile Men", then select "Reports", then "Race Analysis" and/or "Race Analysis Graphical". That leads to these two PDFs (not sure these links are stable):
https://ps-cache.web.swisstiming.com/node/binaryData/ATH_PRO...
https://ps-cache.web.swisstiming.com/node/binaryData/ATH_PRO...
Putting it in 100m times is great perspective. This is essentially a healthy amateur athlete running at nearly full tilt for 4 minutes straight.
There were two men running in front of him for a while (and both just stopped eventually and just dropped off) - was it to "pull" him in their slipstream?
Partially. They're called rabbits[1] (or pacers) whose official role is to run a specific pace, who help encourage a fast race overall rather than a slow buildup with a fast kick.
fyi that video is region locked to the US only https://polsy.org.uk/stuff/ytrestrict.cgi?agreed=on&ytid=htt...
Other source: https://www.reddit.com/r/trackandfield/comments/1uzxv0m/josh...
from https://www.letsrun.com/news/2026/07/chasing-342-inside-josh...
In terms of actual personal bests, Kerr’s fastest mile is the 3:45.34 he ran to win at Prefontaine in 2024. But his 1500 personal best of 3:27.79, which he ran in the Olympic final two months later, is the superior performance.
He also came close to the world record at 1500 m which is at 3:26:00, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1500_metres
He had a special singlet designed and undoubtedly carbon shoes. Makes you wonder how much raw human potential has progressed vs just having better equipment and track surfaces?
The shoes definitely help, but there are all sorts of other innovations that get far less press.
More is known about optimal fuelling, hydration and sleep. Improve those and you improve your daily training. Better quality training compounds and allows you to reach closer to your talent ceiling.
Kerr also had a system set up so his bedroom had less oxygen than the rest of his house (to mimic sleeping at altitude).
He had two pacers breaking the air for the first 1,000m (although he had to do it himself the rest of the way, which was bloody impressive). Meant he could relax mentally for the first 2.5 laps and didn't have to focus on pace. I think El Guerrouj set the previous WR in a race without pacers.
They also had pacing lights on the track which helps the pacers run at an even pace.
And there are all sorts of innovations like taking sodium bicarbonate to reduce muscle acidity, nitrates to dilate the veins and increase blood flow to muscles and high doses of caffeine to reduce the rate of perceived exertion.
As someone else mentioned, track surfaces are generally a little bouncier now than they used to be.
> I think El Guerrouj set the previous WR in a race without pacers.
El Guerrouj had two pacers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvCsj7eJKKA
In fact, looking at this race, Tanui (the second pacer) actually stays on the track for longer than today's pacers did.
from https://www.telegraph.co.uk/athletics/2026/06/23/josh-kerr-m... [turn off javascript to read entire article]
Dr Kyle works out the precise dietary requirements to support my training while my performance chef Jameel Austin does the shopping and makes the meals to ensure I implement that. Everything I put into my body is cooked by Jameel. He also works in a restaurant as a pastry chef – that’s not a food on my menu – but he comes to our house every Monday and Thursday to prepare the meals.
We also do an eight-day coffee fast before races. A coffee about three hours before the race should then have more impact. Regular blood-work informs whether any supplements are recommended by Dr Kyle. Supplements that I might have at different times of the year include vitamin D, omega-3 or beta-alanine.
Like most runners now in almost every distance and endurance sport, I will also take sodium bicarbonate before a race, but I never bother in training. Sodium bicarbonate is essentially baking soda and has long been known to buffer hydrogen ions and thus delay muscle fatigue. Its usage, however, has increased over recent years after it was produced in a gel that helps to bypass the gut and thus reduce the risk of gastro issues.Nitrates to dilate vessels just seems like cheating in the PED sense
Nitrate supplements wouldn't seem to meet the WADA criteria for inclusion on the prohibited substance list because they don't present a health risk to the athlete. A lot of endurance athletes are using beetroot supplements and so far there haven't been any adverse effects.
https://www.wada-ama.org/en/what-we-do/world-anti-doping-cod...
Where do you draw the line? (I know that the answer to that question is always 'somewhere') No one's getting significant levels of baking soda from their diet, and caffeine is a relatively recent cultural addition to most diets.
The gels are much the same. Getting the same nutiritional ratios used to require carefully controlled eating and certainly weighed vastly more than the gels adding both weight and complexity and likely being less performant.
Most(?) sports handle this by maintaining multiple leaderboards. The sub two hour 26.2 mile run was broken years ago, but the sub 2 marathon race was only recently completed, for instance. The difference being that the original was done much like this one in that it was paced, on a track, etc while the later was run in typical marathon conditions with other racers, variable winds etc.
Athletics has never maintained any sort of "leaderboard" for unsanctioned exhibitions. When Eliud Kipchoge ran a marathon-distance time trial sub 2 in 2019 it was an amazing feat of human performance but no one was under any illusions that it was a record.
There are off the shelf supplements that are widely used for this, e.g. BeetElite which contains nitric oxide derived from beet juice. I can testify that they do offer a real performance benefit - in my case I've found them beneficial when running at altitude as a (very) amateur. I'm not sure how/when something like this should become a banned PED.
>Makes you wonder how much raw human potential has progressed
Surely raw human potential cannot have progressed very much at all in the (at most) two generations represented by the 27 years the record stood.
Granted, the population is significantly higher, so it is more statistically likely that we've produced a genuinely faster human than existed 27 years ago.
I think it's fairly well accepted that most of the records being broken now are down to tech, nutrition, and aids. Springier shoes, mechanical pacers, better 'fuels', deeper understanding of exercise periodization, etc.
Give the old record runner all of the same boosts, the same training, I can't imagine he'd be noticeably slower, perhaps within hundreths, but I'd bet within a tenth or two.
There’s a psychological factor. Many people believed it wasn’t humanly possible to do a sub 4 minute mile before Bannister accomplished it.
Once that was done the flood gates opened and many others broke it in the following months. This is the “central governor” theory in endurance sports.
Nah, common misconception.
Progress had been steady for decades, but was interrupted by WW2.
There was one other person who did it a sub 4 minute a month and a half after him, then 3 more people the next year.
It was more down to improvement in training (Bannister was doing interval training, which was a new idea at the time).
Not everybody who can run, runs. Not everybody who runs, runs close to their full potential. Even elite athletes have a life that can “get in the way.” Many who run close to their full potential get injured and set their training back.
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I think OP meant "raw human performance" rather than "raw human potential".
IMO, better training counts as "raw performance". I think that's more interesting than somebody happening to be born with a genetic advantage.
I think a lot of it is also more people doing the sports.
We are assuming the old record is "the best a human can do because one person did it best" or some form of that.
There are likely hundreds or thousands of people alive right now who could break this record given the same lifestyle and training.
The mention of pacemakers made me wonder if you could have some light marker on the track to show the ideal pace you should be keeping as well.
If you can find the human equivalent of the rabbit for greyhounds then maybe even more could be achieved.
Yep, they have that as well. You can see it in the photo here: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/jul/18/josh-kerr-make...
Aha, thanks!
Do you have any insight into what algorithm it uses? Like a ghost runner of the record pace or something?
The directors and organizers of the race control what the lights do. Typically they work with a specific athlete or group of athletes to hit a World Record, National Record, or Meet Record pace.
They are almost always even splits, with a consistent pace through the entire race, though this can be adjusted if the runners request it; that is rare though.
They typically have green lights, which is the target pace, and then a set of blue lights ahead of them, which gives a visual indicator of how far ahead a runner is from the green lights.
from https://www.letsrun.com/news/2026/07/chasing-342-inside-josh...
[Josh Kerr's coach, Danny] Mackey was set to have a meeting with representatives from Wavelight on Tuesday to discuss the pace. He said they have yet to lock in specific splits, but Kerr told LetsRun.com in April that “an even split or a slightly negative split, I think, is the way to do it.”
3:43.13 mile pace is 55.45 per 400, which would mean 1:50.90 at 800 if they were to go for even splits.
Mackey says he hopes the pace is pretty even and “hopefully he’s got something left in the end.”
I don't know. My knowledge is largely based on the caption of that photo :D
I would guess it's just uniform world record pace, and it's up to the runner to use their own strategy - stay just in touch with the light for the first three laps and overtake it on the fourth, or something.
these have made significant differences in some WRs recently. Cheptegei's 10000m in particular was set with rock steady even splits compared to the prior record.
If it's just the singlet and the shoes you would expect lots of other runners to get close too. It's surprising that the previous record stood for 27 years if the equipment has been progressing since then.
I'm sure the track surface and shoes are important, but if "singlet" means the clothing he is wearing? It's really hard to believe that makes a material difference.
It seems conceivable - either less drag and/or some elastic store/return of energy, but OTOH I'm not aware of marathon runners (where you might think it'd make more difference) wearing any special kit.
Could give a psychological boost though - a placebo effect - even if you only believe that it gives you an edge.
It is very easy to do the math on the aerodynamics, even at running speeds it isn't insignificant. It drives me crazy that many pro marathoners are in flappy clothes, or big hair cuts!
In a mile it could be between 1 and 7 tenths, depending on wind and and how bad the default outfit was.
And that may seem insignificant but its big margins at the elite level.
The mile record has dropped due to equipment (tracks and shoes) and pacing innovation since the very first. And I repeat this all the time but nobody listens: modern shoes are fast because of the special foam and light weight, the carbon plates have very little to do with it, experiments have cut those plates in half and running economy remains unchanged. they likely provide important structural support for the thick foam, and carbon makes sense to use for that for weight reasons, on a budget plastic is fine.
The BBC headline writes it as "27-year mile world record", which works out at about one quarter inch per hour.
Scottish too
What are the rules around pacers for this kind of thing? Are there separate records for with/without pacers?
The pacers have to obey the same rules as every other runner. They start at the starting line, they can't run inside the lines, etc.
One of the reasons that Eliud Kipchoge's "Breaking 2" marathon wasn't a legal world record was that teams of pacers would rotate in, take a break, then rotate in again. This way he could have pacers with him almost the entire way. But in a real world record attempt, the winner is always running by themselves in the last part of the race because all of the pacers have been left behind or dropped out -- by definition of a world record, they can't keep up to the end.
No, there is no official record with and without pacers. And arguably, that's why the Olympics is a bit rarer for middle- and long-distance world records (because you aren't allowed official pacers). You could probably track it down though.
I don't know, but define a pacer ?! Someone with better ability to pace than yourself? Someone of lesser endurance willing to run a half race at a pace they can't sustain, but you can? What's the difference between having a pacer and another world class competitor trying to beat you that brings out your best ?
What about slip streaming? Should we regard records differently where the winner stayed with the pack until a final sprint as opposed to front running the whole race?
Obviously. These are 2 different sports. There's a reason the front of a plane or boat looks different to the sides. They carefully paint these lines on the ground then ignore them.
It's annoying watching the guy in first just stop running after 2 minutes.
> It's annoying watching the guy in first just stop running after 2 minutes.
Perhaps, but in terms of the runner following the pacer there is no advantage vs them following someone in same class as themselves that can sustain that pace to the end of the race.
It's certainly interesting to question how much modern gear has advanced records in some sports, but there are so many other variables too, some that change over time such as nutrition and training methods, and then factors such as individual genetics or even country/altitude of origin that mean records can never be exactly compared.
Finally, some exciting news about a record-breaking achievement in human athleticism that deserves worthy attention for once, instead of more of the same AI news.
Congratulations to him!
Are the guys in first and second just windbreaking for him or what's going on?
Very odd.
In Swedish news reports they were careful to specify that it was the "English mile" (sic, ish?).
For clarity, the one that is used in UK, US and Liberia. It is exactly 1609.344 meters.
Disambiguation (not readily available in non-simple English wikipedia): https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mile
Is this because most East Africans don’t really try to beat the mile (instead doing the 1500m) since there’s no money in it?
East African dominance over track events has largely ended. The 1500m world record is held by a West African, while the mile and 3000m world records are now held by white Europeans. The 5000m at the recent World Championships had no East African medalists, and the 10000m had just one. Same goes for the most recent Olympic 5000m.
Compare this with the Olympic and World Championship podiums for the 2000s and 2010s; I don't believe a non-East-African-born athlete won a single 5000/10000m medal for 20 years straight.
No. The 1500m (which is run frequently) and mile world records were held by the same person prior to this, and while the Mile record was considered slightly "worse", maybe one or two people since it was set(Bernard Lagat, Asbel Kiprop) could have beaten it if they focused more on running it, but not really a guarantee.
Jakob Ingebretsen was the other who likely could have beaten it, but he's also been hit by a fair number of Achilles issues, including undergoing surgery this past year.
Kerr's performance was very impressive, and, as he continually reiterates, the team he assembled is what led to it aside from his potential and dedication. He set a PR of 2.68 seconds (two years ago) and before that his closest time was 6.61 seconds away. Granted the mile isn't run frequently, but his 1500m times last year weren't very indicative of hitting the WR either - but also goes to show middle distance and up is often run to win as opposed to set your fastest time similar to shorter distances.
I'm sure the record standing so long is partially down to the fact the mile isn't run at major championships, although the middle distances like 800m and 1500m are more of an open field and not dominated by East Africans like longer distances such as 5k and 10k (Josh Kerr is already an Olympic silver medallist, finishing behind a white American and ahead of an Ethiopian-American).
> I'm sure the record standing so long is partially down to the fact the mile isn't run at major championships
I'm not so sure about that. The 1500 is the equivalent race run at major championships (and most paced time trials). But that record (3:26.00 by Hicham El Guerrouj) has stood one year longer, and is generally considered a stronger record. This is possibly the closest anyone's ever come to an equivalent performance to the 1500 record, in either the mile or the 1500. The second-fastest 1500m time ever is 3:26.34 by Bernard Lagat in 2001. The World Athletics scoring tables value a 3:42.66 at about 3:26.3, eyeballing the midpoint of given values. (Or taking the WA point values on the top lists, Josh Kerr's new mile record is 1298, Lagat's second-best 1500m is 1297, and El Guerrouj's 3:26.00 is 1302.)
I don't know whether the WA points or other conversion methods actually have small enough error bars to distinguish between the Lagat and Kerr performances, but the 1500 record beats the mile record by a big enough margin that I don't think we need to worry about that.
https://worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/middlel...
https://worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/middlel...
Some years ago, I heard that a rough metric for regular athletics: humans slow down by about 5% for each doubling of the distance. If that is accurate even between 100m and the mile, then extrapolating the world 100m record (9.58 seconds) out to the mile would suggest a mile pace of 12.84/100m.
Kerr ran an average of 13.837/100m. If the 5% rule is truly accurate (which is unlikely), there's some scope for faster times. Personally I'd bet the 5% is just a handy rule of thumb that doesn't do much more than to indicate that these are incredible athletes operating at the absolute peak of human performance.