World Athletics announced on Monday that it officially ratified four new world records by Josh Kerr, Alison dos Santos, Yomif Kejelcha and Masai Russell.
All four records occurred in July and August, with Dos Santos and Russell shattering their marks within under an hour of each other at the Weltklasse Zurich as the Diamond League season was coming to a close.
Kerr set the first record on July 18 when he followed through on his promise to break the mile world mark as part of his well-publicized Project 222 that was set for the London Athletics Meet. He clocked a 3:42.66 and lowered Hicham El Guerrouj’s seemingly unbreakable 27-year-old mark of 3:43.13 from 1999.
The stunning feat also earned him a spot as one of three finalists for the moment of the year alongside Sabastian Sawe’s 1:59:30 London Marathon victory in April that made him the first official sub-two hour marathon ever, while Botswana’s men’s 4x400m relay team surged to a home advantage win at the World Athletics Relays in Gaborone in May.
Each moment will battle for the top honor on November 29 in Monaco at World Athletics’s year-end awards ceremony.
Meanwhile, Kejelcha bolted to a 56:51 half marathon record on August 23 at the Media Maratón Ciudad de Buenos Aires, yet another high point in a year that saw him join Sawe in dipping below two hours in the marathon in 1:59:41 in London months earlier.
Kejelcha shaved 29 seconds off of Jacob Kiplimo’s 57:20 mark that was set in March at the Lisbon Half Marathon.
Days later, on August 27, Dos Santos and Russell took turns quickly setting new world records in the hurdles in Zurich in an occasion that felt like a fitting reward as both showed strong season-long progressions that paid off on the same track.
In the men’s 400m hurdles, Dos Santos surged to a 45.80 victory that electrified the crowd inside Stadion Letzigrund, echoing the 46.43 world lead he laid down in Silesia earlier that week.
Russell would provide a worthy follow up as she soared to a 12.09 in the women’s 100m hurdles just over 40 minutes after Dos Santos claimed his mark, blowing past the 12.12 record Tobi Amusan ran in 2022 in Eugene.
