Josh Kerr shattered the 27-year-old world mile record at the London Stadium on Saturday, running three minutes 42.66 seconds at the London Diamond League meeting. The 28-year-old Scot, cheered by a capacity 60,000 crowd, broke Hicham El Guerrouj's long-standing record by 0.47 seconds. El Guerrouj set his mark in 1999, when Kerr was only one year old.
Project 222 and training innovation
As part of 'Project 222', Kerr had targeted a sub-223-second race. He built 222-second ice-bath recoveries into his training after announcing in March he would target the Moroccan's record. Kerr, the 2023 world 1,500m champion, became the sixth Briton to hold the mile record and was awarded a $50,000 (£37,192) prize for the achievement.
Emotional reaction and legacy
'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.' He added: '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!'
