What an incredible performance. I've seen a sub-4 mile in person. These guys are absolutely flying. All of them. And he beats the pants off that field.
Splits (400m):
400m: 55.3
800m: 1:51.1 (56.8 second lap)
1200m: 2:46.5 (55.4 second lap)
1600m: 3:41.4 (54.9 third lap)
Mile: 3:42.66
Unfortunately you can't link directly to the 1 mile results. Scroll down to the table, select "1 Mile Men", then select "Reports", then "Race Analysis" and/or "Race Analysis Graphical". That leads to these two PDFs (not sure these links are stable):
He had a special singlet designed and undoubtedly carbon shoes. Makes you wonder how much raw human potential has progressed vs just having better equipment and track surfaces?
The shoes definitely help, but there are all sorts of other innovations that get far less press.
More is known about optimal fuelling, hydration and sleep. Improve those and you improve your daily training. Better quality training compounds and allows you to reach closer to your talent ceiling.
Kerr also had a system set up so his bedroom had less oxygen than the rest of his house (to mimic sleeping at altitude).
He had two pacers breaking the air for the first 1,000m (although he had to do it himself the rest of the way, which was bloody impressive). Meant he could relax mentally for the first 2.5 laps and didn't have to focus on pace. I think El Guerrouj set the previous WR in a race without pacers.
They also had pacing lights on the track which helps the pacers run at an even pace.
And there are all sorts of innovations like taking sodium bicarbonate to reduce muscle acidity, nitrates to dilate the veins and increase blood flow to muscles and high doses of caffeine to reduce the rate of perceived exertion.
As someone else mentioned, track surfaces are generally a little bouncier now than they used to be.
Nitrate supplements wouldn't seem to meet the WADA criteria for inclusion on the prohibited substance list because they don't present a health risk to the athlete. A lot of endurance athletes are using beetroot supplements and so far there haven't been any adverse effects.
Where do you draw the line? (I know that the answer to that question is always 'somewhere') No one's getting significant levels of baking soda from their diet, and caffeine is a relatively recent cultural addition to most diets.
The gels are much the same. Getting the same nutiritional ratios used to require carefully controlled eating and certainly weighed vastly more than the gels adding both weight and complexity and likely being less performant.
Most(?) sports handle this by maintaining multiple leaderboards. The sub two hour 26.2 mile run was broken years ago, but the sub 2 marathon race was only recently completed, for instance. The difference being that the original was done much like this one in that it was paced, on a track, etc while the later was run in typical marathon conditions with other racers, variable winds etc.
Athletics has never maintained any sort of "leaderboard" for unsanctioned exhibitions. When Eliud Kipchoge ran a marathon-distance time trial sub 2 in 2019 it was an amazing feat of human performance but no one was under any illusions that it was a record.
There are off the shelf supplements that are widely used for this, e.g. BeetElite which contains nitric oxide derived from beet juice. I can testify that they do offer a real performance benefit - in my case I've found them beneficial when running at altitude as a (very) amateur. I'm not sure how/when something like this should become a banned PED.
>Makes you wonder how much raw human potential has progressed
Surely raw human potential cannot have progressed very much at all in the (at most) two generations represented by the 27 years the record stood.
Granted, the population is significantly higher, so it is more statistically likely that we've produced a genuinely faster human than existed 27 years ago.
I think it's fairly well accepted that most of the records being broken now are down to tech, nutrition, and aids. Springier shoes, mechanical pacers, better 'fuels', deeper understanding of exercise periodization, etc.
Give the old record runner all of the same boosts, the same training, I can't imagine he'd be noticeably slower, perhaps within hundreths, but I'd bet within a tenth or two.
Not everybody who can run, runs. Not everybody who runs, runs close to their full potential. Even elite athletes have a life that can “get in the way.” Many who run close to their full potential get injured and set their training back.
You don’t need to use those commas which are in fact incorrect and also don’t match how one would speak that sentence (do you pause between ‘run runs’?).
If you’re worried about written clarity, it’s better not to use unclear constructions
If it's just the singlet and the shoes you would expect lots of other runners to get close too. It's surprising that the previous record stood for 27 years if the equipment has been progressing since then.
I don't know. My knowledge is largely based on the caption of that photo :D
I would guess it's just uniform world record pace, and it's up to the runner to use their own strategy - stay just in touch with the light for the first three laps and overtake it on the fourth, or something.
I'm sure the track surface and shoes are important, but if "singlet" means the clothing he is wearing? It's really hard to believe that makes a material difference.
It is very easy to do the math on the aerodynamics, even at running speeds it isn't insignificant. It drives me crazy that many pro marathoners are in flappy clothes, or big hair cuts!
In a mile it could be between 1 and 7 tenths, depending on wind and and how bad the default outfit was.
And that may seem insignificant but its big margins at the elite level.
The mile record has dropped due to equipment (tracks and shoes) and pacing innovation since the very first. And I repeat this all the time but nobody listens: modern shoes are fast because of the special foam and light weight, the carbon plates have very little to do with it, experiments have cut those plates in half and running economy remains unchanged. they likely provide important structural support for the thick foam, and carbon makes sense to use for that for weight reasons, on a budget plastic is fine.
Finally, some exciting news about a record-breaking achievement in human athleticism that deserves worthy attention for once, instead of more of the same AI news.
East African dominance over track events has largely ended. The 1500m world record is held by a West African, while the mile and 3000m world records are now held by white Europeans. The 5000m at the recent World Championships had no East African medalists, and the 10000m had just one. Same goes for the most recent Olympic 5000m.
Compare this with the Olympic and World Championship podiums for the 2000s and 2010s; I don't believe a non-East-African-born athlete won a single 5000/10000m medal for 20 years straight.
I'm sure the record standing so long is partially down to the fact the mile isn't run at major championships, although the middle distances like 800m and 1500m are more of an open field and not dominated by East Africans like longer distances such as 5k and 10k (Josh Kerr is already an Olympic silver medallist, finishing behind a white American and ahead of an Ethiopian-American).
> I'm sure the record standing so long is partially down to the fact the mile isn't run at major championships
I'm not so sure about that. The 1500 is the equivalent race run at major championships (and most paced time trials). But that record (3:26.00 by Hicham El Guerrouj) has stood one year longer, and is generally considered a stronger record. This is possibly the closest anyone's ever come to an equivalent performance to the 1500 record, in either the mile or the 1500. The second-fastest 1500m time ever is 3:26.34 by Bernard Lagat in 2001. The World Athletics scoring tables value a 3:42.66 at about 3:26.3, eyeballing the midpoint of given values. (Or taking the WA point values on the top lists, Josh Kerr's new mile record is 1298, Lagat's second-best 1500m is 1297, and El Guerrouj's 3:26.00 is 1302.)
I don't know whether the WA points or other conversion methods actually have small enough error bars to distinguish between the Lagat and Kerr performances, but the 1500 record beats the mile record by a big enough margin that I don't think we need to worry about that.
Watch him do it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYi2f4ONEDg&t=180
What an incredible performance. I've seen a sub-4 mile in person. These guys are absolutely flying. All of them. And he beats the pants off that field.
Splits (400m):
Splits (100m): Splits copied from https://xcancel.com/ChrisChavez/status/2078494868540637695Official results at https://london.diamondleague.com/programme-results/
Unfortunately you can't link directly to the 1 mile results. Scroll down to the table, select "1 Mile Men", then select "Reports", then "Race Analysis" and/or "Race Analysis Graphical". That leads to these two PDFs (not sure these links are stable):
https://ps-cache.web.swisstiming.com/node/binaryData/ATH_PRO...
https://ps-cache.web.swisstiming.com/node/binaryData/ATH_PRO...
He also came close to the world record at 1500 m which is at 3:26:00, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1500_metres
He had a special singlet designed and undoubtedly carbon shoes. Makes you wonder how much raw human potential has progressed vs just having better equipment and track surfaces?
The shoes definitely help, but there are all sorts of other innovations that get far less press.
More is known about optimal fuelling, hydration and sleep. Improve those and you improve your daily training. Better quality training compounds and allows you to reach closer to your talent ceiling.
Kerr also had a system set up so his bedroom had less oxygen than the rest of his house (to mimic sleeping at altitude).
He had two pacers breaking the air for the first 1,000m (although he had to do it himself the rest of the way, which was bloody impressive). Meant he could relax mentally for the first 2.5 laps and didn't have to focus on pace. I think El Guerrouj set the previous WR in a race without pacers.
They also had pacing lights on the track which helps the pacers run at an even pace.
And there are all sorts of innovations like taking sodium bicarbonate to reduce muscle acidity, nitrates to dilate the veins and increase blood flow to muscles and high doses of caffeine to reduce the rate of perceived exertion.
As someone else mentioned, track surfaces are generally a little bouncier now than they used to be.
> I think El Guerrouj set the previous WR in a race without pacers.
El Guerrouj had two pacers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvCsj7eJKKA
In fact, looking at this race, Tanui (the second pacer) actually stays on the track for longer than today's pacers did.
Nitrates to dilate vessels just seems like cheating in the PED sense
Nitrate supplements wouldn't seem to meet the WADA criteria for inclusion on the prohibited substance list because they don't present a health risk to the athlete. A lot of endurance athletes are using beetroot supplements and so far there haven't been any adverse effects.
https://www.wada-ama.org/en/what-we-do/world-anti-doping-cod...
Where do you draw the line? (I know that the answer to that question is always 'somewhere') No one's getting significant levels of baking soda from their diet, and caffeine is a relatively recent cultural addition to most diets.
The gels are much the same. Getting the same nutiritional ratios used to require carefully controlled eating and certainly weighed vastly more than the gels adding both weight and complexity and likely being less performant.
Most(?) sports handle this by maintaining multiple leaderboards. The sub two hour 26.2 mile run was broken years ago, but the sub 2 marathon race was only recently completed, for instance. The difference being that the original was done much like this one in that it was paced, on a track, etc while the later was run in typical marathon conditions with other racers, variable winds etc.
Athletics has never maintained any sort of "leaderboard" for unsanctioned exhibitions. When Eliud Kipchoge ran a marathon-distance time trial sub 2 in 2019 it was an amazing feat of human performance but no one was under any illusions that it was a record.
There are off the shelf supplements that are widely used for this, e.g. BeetElite which contains nitric oxide derived from beet juice. I can testify that they do offer a real performance benefit - in my case I've found them beneficial when running at altitude as a (very) amateur. I'm not sure how/when something like this should become a banned PED.
>Makes you wonder how much raw human potential has progressed
Surely raw human potential cannot have progressed very much at all in the (at most) two generations represented by the 27 years the record stood.
Granted, the population is significantly higher, so it is more statistically likely that we've produced a genuinely faster human than existed 27 years ago.
I think it's fairly well accepted that most of the records being broken now are down to tech, nutrition, and aids. Springier shoes, mechanical pacers, better 'fuels', deeper understanding of exercise periodization, etc.
Give the old record runner all of the same boosts, the same training, I can't imagine he'd be noticeably slower, perhaps within hundreths, but I'd bet within a tenth or two.
There’s a psychological factor. Many people believed it wasn’t humanly possible to do a sub 4 minute mile before Bannister accomplished it.
Once that was done the flood gates opened and many others broke it in the following months. This is the “central governor” theory in endurance sports.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_governor
Not everybody who can run, runs. Not everybody who runs, runs close to their full potential. Even elite athletes have a life that can “get in the way.” Many who run close to their full potential get injured and set their training back.
You don’t need to use those commas which are in fact incorrect and also don’t match how one would speak that sentence (do you pause between ‘run runs’?).
If you’re worried about written clarity, it’s better not to use unclear constructions
Why do you think this comment is helpful?
I think a lot of it is also more people doing the sports.
We are assuming the old record is "the best a human can do because one person did it best" or some form of that.
There are likely hundreds or thousands of people alive right now who could break this record given the same lifestyle and training.
If it's just the singlet and the shoes you would expect lots of other runners to get close too. It's surprising that the previous record stood for 27 years if the equipment has been progressing since then.
The mention of pacemakers made me wonder if you could have some light marker on the track to show the ideal pace you should be keeping as well.
If you can find the human equivalent of the rabbit for greyhounds then maybe even more could be achieved.
Yep, they have that as well. You can see it in the photo here: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/jul/18/josh-kerr-make...
Aha, thanks!
Do you have any insight into what algorithm it uses? Like a ghost runner of the record pace or something?
I don't know. My knowledge is largely based on the caption of that photo :D
I would guess it's just uniform world record pace, and it's up to the runner to use their own strategy - stay just in touch with the light for the first three laps and overtake it on the fourth, or something.
I'm sure the track surface and shoes are important, but if "singlet" means the clothing he is wearing? It's really hard to believe that makes a material difference.
It is very easy to do the math on the aerodynamics, even at running speeds it isn't insignificant. It drives me crazy that many pro marathoners are in flappy clothes, or big hair cuts!
In a mile it could be between 1 and 7 tenths, depending on wind and and how bad the default outfit was.
And that may seem insignificant but its big margins at the elite level.
The mile record has dropped due to equipment (tracks and shoes) and pacing innovation since the very first. And I repeat this all the time but nobody listens: modern shoes are fast because of the special foam and light weight, the carbon plates have very little to do with it, experiments have cut those plates in half and running economy remains unchanged. they likely provide important structural support for the thick foam, and carbon makes sense to use for that for weight reasons, on a budget plastic is fine.
If you’re actually a runner you wouldn’t have made this comment. Give me a break
Hn has entered “bro do you even lift?” Territory.
Scottish too
Finally, some exciting news about a record-breaking achievement in human athleticism that deserves worthy attention for once, instead of more of the same AI news.
Congratulations to him!
What are the rules around pacers for this kind of thing? Are there separate records for with/without pacers?
Is this because most East Africans don’t really try to beat the mile (instead doing the 1500m) since there’s no money in it?
East African dominance over track events has largely ended. The 1500m world record is held by a West African, while the mile and 3000m world records are now held by white Europeans. The 5000m at the recent World Championships had no East African medalists, and the 10000m had just one. Same goes for the most recent Olympic 5000m.
Compare this with the Olympic and World Championship podiums for the 2000s and 2010s; I don't believe a non-East-African-born athlete won a single 5000/10000m medal for 20 years straight.
I'm sure the record standing so long is partially down to the fact the mile isn't run at major championships, although the middle distances like 800m and 1500m are more of an open field and not dominated by East Africans like longer distances such as 5k and 10k (Josh Kerr is already an Olympic silver medallist, finishing behind a white American and ahead of an Ethiopian-American).
> I'm sure the record standing so long is partially down to the fact the mile isn't run at major championships
I'm not so sure about that. The 1500 is the equivalent race run at major championships (and most paced time trials). But that record (3:26.00 by Hicham El Guerrouj) has stood one year longer, and is generally considered a stronger record. This is possibly the closest anyone's ever come to an equivalent performance to the 1500 record, in either the mile or the 1500. The second-fastest 1500m time ever is 3:26.34 by Bernard Lagat in 2001. The World Athletics scoring tables value a 3:42.66 at about 3:26.3, eyeballing the midpoint of given values. (Or taking the WA point values on the top lists, Josh Kerr's new mile record is 1298, Lagat's second-best 1500m is 1297, and El Guerrouj's 3:26.00 is 1302.)
I don't know whether the WA points or other conversion methods actually have small enough error bars to distinguish between the Lagat and Kerr performances, but the 1500 record beats the mile record by a big enough margin that I don't think we need to worry about that.
https://worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/middlel...
https://worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/middlel...
Because most humans don't really try, not limited to east africans.