Josh Kerr Says He Lost His Hearing in the Final Straight of His World Mile Record

Josh Kerr says his hearing cut out over the closing stretch of the race in which he broke the world mile record, leaving him to run the final 110m in near silence. Kerr, who clocked 3:42.66 at the London meet Saturday to beat a mark that had stood for 27 years, described the sensation in an interview with The Athletic published Tuesday.

“It’s a very calming sensation, a trigger,” Kerr told The Athletic, saying his body was shutting off everything it did not need as he drove for the line. He crossed it more than three seconds clear of the American Yared Nuguse, who ran 3:45.69, in front of a sold-out crowd of about 60,000 at London Stadium.

It was not the first time Kerr had raced deaf to what was around him. The same thing set in over the opening 300m of the Paris 2024 Olympic 1,500m final, where he took silver behind the American Cole Hocker. Kerr told The Athletic the recurrence convinced him the cause was not physical. “It is mental and emotional,” he said. “A lot of it has to do with the atmosphere and occasion.” It surfaces occasionally in training too, he added, but only when he pushes to his limit.

The time made Kerr the first man to run a mile in under 3:43, taking 0.47 seconds off Hicham El Guerrouj’s 3:43.13 from Rome in 1999. He told The Athletic he does not expect his own record to stand as long as El Guerrouj’s did.