Josh Kerr breaks 27-year-old mile record in London
Josh Kerr shattered the 27-year-old world mile record at the London Stadium on Saturday.
The 28-year-old, cheered on by a capacity 60,000 crowd at the London Diamond League meeting, ran a time of three minutes 42.66 seconds to break Hicham El Guerrouj’s long-standing record by 0.47 seconds.
As part of ‘Project 222’, Kerr had targeted a sub-223-second race, and with Saturday’s run he became the sixth Briton to hold the mile record. El Guerrouj set his world record in 1999 when Kerr was only one year old.
Kerr, who is the 2023 world 1,500m champion, said in March he would target the Moroccan’s record, building 222-second ice-bath recoveries into his training.
Kerr was awarded a $50,000 (£37,192) prize for breaking the record.
‘It’s very overwhelming with the amount of hype,’ Kerr told BBC Sport.
‘It’s silly to call [the attempt] that early because there’s a lot of things which can go wrong, but I am surrounded by amazing people and was able to stay consistent and put the work in.’
‘If I am to leave my mark on this sport as a British legend, following in the footsteps of the legends behind me, I have to put in those performances.
‘Those performances take every single part of you, every single part of your team. The amount of work behind the scenes is incredible.
‘Today it was a performance I was able to bring out, I just hoped it would be a little bit faster!’
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Josh Kerr breaks 27-year-old mile record in London
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