Josh Kerr Breaks the Mile World Record, Ending a 27-Year Wait

3:42.66 in London — the first man ever under 3:43, taking down a mark set by Hicham El Guerrouj back in 1999.

By Miles Ashworth · 19 Jul 2026 · 1 min read · United Kingdom edition

Josh Kerr, Great Britain, 2024. Photo: via Wikimedia Commons (GFDL).

Britain's Josh Kerr ran 3:42.66 for the mile at the London Diamond League, becoming the first man in history to go under 3:43 for the distance and breaking a world record that had stood since 1999.

That record belonged to Morocco's Hicham El Guerrouj, who ran 3:43.13 in Rome — one of track and field's most enduring marks, and a genuine measuring stick for the sport for over a quarter of a century. Kerr had talked openly beforehand about targeting it.

"It is very overwhelming," Kerr said afterward. "There was a lot of hype. I am surrounded by amazing people, so I have continued to put the work in, so I knew I had a 3:42 in me."

The mile isn't run as a championship event as often as it used to be, but it's kept its mythology — the four-minute barrier, then the steady creep toward the theoretical limit. El Guerrouj's mark had outlasted an entire generation of milers who tried and failed to touch it; Kerr is the first to actually get under it.