World Athletics ratified four world records on November 9, 2026, all of them set during the summer season: Josh Kerr's 3:42.66 mile, Yomif Kejelcha's 56:51 half marathon, Alison dos Santos's 45.80 in the 400 meter hurdles and Masai Russell's 12.09 in the 100 meter hurdles. Each mark had been run between July 18 and August 27 and had been waiting on the federation's checks of timing, course measurement, wind readings and doping control before becoming official.

Kejelcha's Half Marathon: 4:20 Per Mile for 13.1 Miles

The half marathon record is the one with the widest reach for American road runners, because the distance is the same one hundreds of thousands of them race every fall. Kejelcha, of Ethiopia, ran 56:51 at the Media Maraton Ciudad de Buenos Aires on August 23, 2026, a World Athletics Label road race. That is an average of about 4:20 per mile. He took 29 seconds from the 57:20 that Jacob Kiplimo of Uganda ran in Lisbon on March 8, 2025, and he regained a record he had held before: his 57:30 in Valencia in October 2024 was the mark Kiplimo had broken.

The splits in the ratification notice show how evenly it was run. Kejelcha passed 10 kilometers in 27:19 and 15 kilometers in 40:41, covering the stretch from 10 to 15 kilometers in 13:22. He reached 20 kilometers in 54:04, which means his second 10 kilometers took 26:45, more than half a minute faster than his first. For a reader tracking pace on a watch, the second 10 kilometers works out to about 4:18 per mile.

Kerr's Mile Ends a 27-Year-Old Record

Josh Kerr of Great Britain, the 2023 world champion at 1,500 meters, ran 3:42.66 for the mile at the Novuna London Athletics Meet, a Wanda Diamond League meeting, on July 18, 2026, in front of a crowd of about 60,000. The previous record was Hicham El Guerrouj's 3:43.13 from Rome on July 7, 1999, which had stood for 27 years. Kerr's splits were 55.3 at 400 meters, 1:51.1 at 800 meters and 2:46.39 at 1,200 meters, and he passed 1,500 meters in 3:27.62, a time World Athletics notes was faster than his own British record for that distance. The closing 109 meters took 15.04 seconds.

Two Hurdles Records in 40 Minutes in Zurich

The other two records came on the same evening at the Weltklasse Diamond League meeting in Zurich on August 27, 2026. Alison dos Santos of Brazil, the 2022 world champion, ran 45.80 in the 400 meter hurdles, taking 0.14 seconds from the mark Karsten Warholm of Norway had set at the Tokyo Olympic Games on August 3, 2021. According to the ratification notice, dos Santos caught Warholm by halfway and pulled away; Warholm finished second in 46.69.

Less than 40 minutes later, Masai Russell of the United States, the Olympic champion, ran 12.09 in the 100 meter hurdles. The previous record was 12.12, set by Tobi Amusan of Nigeria in Oregon on July 24, 2022. Amusan was second in Zurich in 12.23. Russell had come close to the record twice earlier in the season before the mark fell by 0.03 seconds.

What Ratification Means

A performance is not a world record when the clock stops. World Athletics requires, among other things, that the race was held under its competition rules, that the timing system met its standards, that wind readings were legal for sprints and hurdles, that a road course was measured and certified, and that the athlete completed doping control. A mark that has not yet cleared these checks is listed as pending. The November 9 notice moved all four from pending to ratified, which is why the records appear in the federation's lists with no asterisk.

For a runner who wants to see the marks in context, the World Athletics records pages list every ratified record by event, with the progression behind each one. The fall road racing season in the United States runs through December, and the half marathon world record pace, 4:20 per mile, is a useful yardstick: a 2:00 half marathon is 9:09 per mile, a little more than double it.

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