LONDON (AP) \u2014 The storied men\u2019s mile record in track that has stood for 27 years will come under attack Saturday from Britain\u2019s Josh Kerr.<\/p>\n
Kerr, the 2023 world champion over the 1,500 meters metric mile, has called it \u201cProject 222\u201d \u2014 for each second he aims to take in breaking Hicham El Guerrouj\u2019s mark of 3 minutes, 43.13 seconds.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s in my favor,\u201d Kerr said Friday at a news conference at London Stadium that staged track and field at the 2012 Olympics. \u201cMy body is capable of the mark and so my job tomorrow is to have my mind to be available to let my body do its job.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 28-year-old Kerr has targeted the mile race at the Diamond League meeting as a main goal in a track season with neither Olympics nor world championships.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very excited. It\u2019s been on my mind, my team\u2019s mind, for a long time,\u201d said the 1,500 silver medalist at the 2024 Paris Olympics.<\/p>\n
The mile is not a championships event yet has iconic status in track history, with the four-minute barrier finally broken in 1954 by another British runner, Roger Bannister.<\/p>\n
El Guerrouj\u2019s record set in 1999 is more than 16 seconds faster than Bannister, and Kerr is the sixth-fastest athlete on the all-time list. One of his rivals Saturday is No. 4 in that list.<\/p>\n
Yared Nuguse set a United States record three years ago, 0.84 slower than El Guerrouj, in a race won by Jakob Ingebrigtsen at Eugene, Oregon.<\/p>\n
While Bannister\u2019s feat running 3:59.4 is remembered in track lore, he held the record just a few weeks before Australian John Landy lowered it by 1.4 seconds.<\/p>\n
Jim Ryun of the U.S. later held the record for nine years until Filbert Bayi of Tanzania took it in 1975.<\/p>\n
A stellar 10 days in August 1981 saw a British rivalry play out: Sebastian Coe took Steve Ovett\u2019s mile record, Ovett got it back then Coe beat it again clocking 3:47.33.<\/p>\n
In the 45 years since, the mile record was held only by Steve Cram, Noureddine Morceli and El Guerrouj.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LONDON (AP) \u2014 The storied men\u2019s mile record in track that has stood for 27 years will come under attack Saturday from Britain\u2019s Josh Kerr. Kerr, the 2023 world champion over the 1,500 meters metric mile, has called it \u201cProject 222\u201d \u2014 for each second he aims to take in breaking Hicham El Guerrouj\u2019s mark … Continue reading Storied men\u2019s mile record set 27 years ago in sights of British runner Josh Kerr<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1452],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1525602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":true,"date":"2026-07-19 13:12:15","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[0],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1525602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1525602"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1525602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1525604,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1525602\/revisions\/1525604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1525602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1525602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1525602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}