Josh Kerr breaks mile world record but Keely Hodgkinson fails in 800m record bid at London Diamond League athletics
Josh Kerr broke the world record for the mile at the Diamond League event in London on Saturday, but Keely Hodgkinson failed in her bid to break the oldest world record in athletics.
Great Britain's Kerr ran a remarkable time of 3.42.66, which saw him take 0.47 seconds off Moroccan Hicham El Guerrouj's mark of 3.43.13 set in 1999.
The mile is an event which is not typically run at World Championships or Olympic Games, but in March the former world 1500 metres champion announced his intention to try to break the record which had stood for 27 years.
Kerr took almost half a second off the time and the feat earned him a cheque for $50,000 (£37,000) in front of a rapturous crowd at the London Stadium.
"It's very overwhelming," he told the BBC. "I nearly lost it at the end, but I got over the line."
Olympic champion Hodgkinson was also looking for history at Saturday's event in London, but suffered a bizarre injury in training prior to the race and posted a time of 1.56.21 as she won the women's 800m.
That was almost three tenths of a second slower than the world record set by Jarmila Kratochvilova - then running for Czechoslovakia - at a race meeting in Munich in July 1983.
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The 43-year record continues with Hodgkinson's hopes hampered while cooling down after a session in Wigan when she tripped over and landed on a metal grate, which shredded her knees.
Hodgkinson will have another attempt at the record on home soil at the European Championships in Birmingham next month - which may turn into a showdown with Swiss runner Audrey Werro who has recorded the third and fourth fastest 800m times recently.
More to follow...
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21 of July 2026
