Josh Kerr runs 3:42.66 in London to break the 27-year-old mile world record

Josh Kerr ran the mile in 3:42.66 at the London Athletics Meet on Saturday, a world record. Hicham El Guerrouj's 3:43.13, run in Rome on 7 July 1999, had stood for 27 years and 11 days, the longest any men's mile record has lasted. Kerr took 0.47 off it. The record is subject to ratification.

The race went off at half past four in front of about 60,000 people at the London Stadium. Brannon Kidder paced the first 800 m and Žan Rudolf, a late replacement, took it on to 1000 m. Kerr, 28, then ran the last 600 m alone. His previous best was 3:45.34; this was a lifetime improvement of 2.68 seconds in one afternoon. Noah Ngeny's 3:43.40 from the same Rome race in 1999 had been the second-fastest mile in history until Saturday.

Yared Nuguse was second in 3:45.69, a season's best, and Jake Heyward third in a personal best 3:46.73. Robert Farken ran 3:46.82 for fourth, his second German record in two weeks. Nathan Green, 3:48.05, and Arlo Ludewick, 3:48.17, also ran lifetime bests, and ten men broke 3:52. Kerr said afterwards: "I knew I had a 3:42 in me." World Athletics pays him a 50,000 dollar bonus, the same figure El Guerrouj collected in 1999.

Kerr had won the world indoor 3000 m title in Toruń in March and goes to the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in nine days, where the mile is on the programme for the first time since 1966.

Four laps, no pacemaker for the last one and a half, a record older than most of the field. Nothing in running is harder to fake than that.

Sources: World Athletics; Diamond League results; Marathon Handbook; World-Track; Wikipedia; Glasgow 2026.