Josh Kerr will chase the mile world record on 18 July. It has stood for 27 years.
Josh Kerr will try to beat Hicham El Guerrouj's mile world record of 3:43.13 at the London Athletics Meet on 18 July. He calls it Project 222.
What happened
Josh Kerr confirmed ‘Project 222’ — an attempt to run a 222-second (3:42) mile at the London Diamond League on , targeting El Guerrouj’s 3:43.13 world record.
Josh Kerr will try to break the mile world record on . He announced it just after winning the world indoor 3000m title again, in Toruń. The attempt is at the Novuna London Athletics Meet, the eleventh meeting of the 2026 Diamond League. The record is Hicham El Guerrouj’s 3:43.13, set in Rome in and not beaten since.
Kerr wants a real race, not a solo run against the clock, and says rivals such as Cole Hocker and Jakob Ingebrigtsen are welcome in the field: “I believe I’ve been in shape to run this world record a couple of times already.”
Kerr’s best time, 3:45.34, is the British record. He ran it when he beat Ingebrigtsen in the 2024 Bowerman Mile. That is 2.21 seconds slower than the world record. He will race in front of a home crowd at London Stadium, the world’s biggest one-day athletics meeting.
Sources: London Diamond League, Wanda Diamond League
The Pattern
No one has beaten the mile record since Rome in 1999. The men’s mile world record fell again and again in the years of Sebastian Coe, Steve Ovett and Steve Cram, then stopped moving. Every generation since has tried, including planned attempts with pacers and new kit by the best 1500m runners of their time.
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The Read
The case for Kerr is that attempts like this are now carefully planned projects, and the tools have improved. New racing spikes and faster suits have already brought records down across distance running. Pacing lights on the track help runners avoid wasted effort. Kerr is a championship racer who has beaten Ingebrigtsen more than once, including when he ran 3:45.34 in Eugene. He is a double world indoor champion in the best form of his life, racing at home, with fourteen weeks to prepare for one night.
The doubt is simple maths. Kerr must take 2.21 seconds off his best time in one race. Neither Ingebrigtsen nor Nuguse could do that when they were within a second of the record and running their best races. El Guerrouj’s record has survived every new shoe so far, and London in July offers no altitude, no promise of still air, and the pressure of a promise made in March. A 16 per cent chance on the record is, if anything, generous. Kerr simply winning the race, at 62 per cent, is where the confidence belongs.
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