For 27 years, no one has managed a sub-3:43 mile. And on Saturday night at the London Stadium, Josh Kerr did it by nearly half a second, finally toppling a record that had withstood every serious challenge since 1999.
Kerr crossed the finish line at the Novona London Athletics Meet in 3:42.66, 0.47 seconds behind Hicham El Guerrouj’s record of 3:43.13, set in Rome on July 7, 1999. It’s the first sub-3:43 mile ever, and it ends one of the most enduring records in track and field, one that has quietly surpassed an entire generation of athletes who came for it and failed.
Kerr has been pursuing his goal since March, when he announced he would be aiming for the record under the banner “Project 222,” a reference to the 222-second time, 3:42 seconds, that he believed he could run. It was a bold thing to say publicly with four months to go, but he backed it up in front of a crowd of 60,000 at the London Stadium on the Emsley Carr Mile.
The race followed the modern scheme of a record attempt, which was designed entirely around dragging Kerr through the pain barrier with speed. His training partner Brannon Kidder took the field over the opening lap in 54.75, with Kerr just behind in 55.3, before handing it off to teammate Zane Rudolph to get through the 800 meters in 1:51.1. The runners separated soon after, and Kerr was alone from the 1200 metres, running 2:46.39, needing to hold something close for the 56-second closing lap with no one left to follow.
He kept it. only.
“I knew I had 3:42,” Kerr said afterwards, before admitting the closing distance almost eluded him.
American Jared Nogus followed him home in second place, clocking 3:45.69. It’s a mark that would have been extraordinary in almost any other field. Nuguse is one of only two men to have clocked under 3:44 since El Guerrouj set the record, doing so alongside Jakob Ingebrigtsen at the 2023 Prefontaine Classic, and on Saturday he was still nearly three seconds behind Kerr. Jake Heyward finished third with a time of 3:46.73, while Germany’s Robert Farken set a national record of 3:46.82 to finish fourth. One of the deepest fields ever assembled, and Kerr still won it on the run.
It’s easier to understand the magnitude of what Kerr did against record history than against time. Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett traded the number back and forth in the early 1980s before Steve Cram lowered it to 3:46.32 in Oslo in 1985. Noureddine Morselli took over eight years later with a time of 3:44.39 in Rieti, and El Guerrouj then arrived in Rome in 1999 and ran 3:43.13, a time so far ahead of his time that it took him to even match Ingebrigtsen And Nuguse in 2023, twenty-four years later, such that anyone can get close to her even for a second.
Kerr, 28, has a CV that most runners would take in a heartbeat: a world champion in the 1,500m from Budapest in 2023, an Olympic bronze in Tokyo and a silver in Paris, a world title in the 3,000m indoor earlier this year, and a British mile record set by Cram in 2024, when he ran 3:45.34 to beat Ingebrigtsen in Eugene and becomes the tenth fastest runner. In history at that time. On Saturday, he became the fastest man ever to cover this distance.
Where the record goes from here is really open. At 28 years old, Kerr will likely be at or near his physical peak for this event, and has just shown that he can run more than two seconds faster than his previous year’s best when the occasion calls for it. Whether 3:42.66 is the ceiling or just a new floor is the question the rest of the mile contenders must now answer.
