Numbers in running can sometimes be abstract, but Kerr ran a mile, and as Americans, we should be pretty familiar with the concept of “miles per hour.” Kerr ran 16.17 miles per hour. Treadmills generally crap out after 15 mph.

Kerr says he lost his hearing for the last 100 meters, which apparently happens to him somewhat regularly. “It’s a very calming sensation, a trigger … as soon as it happens, it is my body telling me everything I don’t need is shutting off, and I’m going to get to the line as quickly as possible.” It’s a bit of a bummer in this case, though: he deserved to hear the crowd roaring.

Kerr pulled off the record with terrifying consistency. His 400m splits were 55.3, 55.8, 55.4, and 54.9 seconds. His final seven 100m splits were all between 13.7 and 13.9 seconds.

Can I claim this record for America? Sure: Kerr went to the University of New Mexico, and lives and trains at elevation in Albuquerque. New Mexico has one of the best distance running programs in the country. The men’s team finished second at this year’s NCAA cross country championships and won a handful of NCAA track championships.

And who can forget that Kerr took silver in one of my favorite races of the 2024 Olympics, when Cole Hocker won gold with a late kick.

Everybody knows about Roger Bannister’s famous four-minute mile, but Bannister’s record only held for about six weeks before it was broken by Australia’s John Landy, and would go on to be broken eight times in the next 15 years.

Kerr just broke a record that stood for 27 years. In fact, nobody had run faster than Noah Ngeny, the second-place finisher in Hircham El Guerrouj’s world record race, until Kerr did it this weekend.

Kerr targeted the record, calling his training “Project 222,” since he was trying to run the mile in 222 seconds.

Why had the mile record stood for so long? For one, it’s not a common race. The mile is a really arbitrary measurement — 5,280 feet, or 1,609.344 meters. It doesn’t fit cleanly into a 400m track. You can see that the race organizers had to tape on some of the starting lines for the competitors in London:

A few major mile races (the Bowerman Mile in Oregon, the Dream Mile in Oslo, the indoor Wanamaker Mile in New York) are held every year, but the event isn’t held at most Diamond League meets, the Olympics, or World Championships.

Even here in America, the mile doesn’t get run that often. The NCAA track championships used to hold a mile race three out of four years and then swap to the 1500m in Olympic years. But the 1500m is about 100 meters shorter than the mile — 109.344 meters, but who’s counting — and times varied wildly depending on the year. American track went metric for good in the 1970s.

(BTW, isn’t it weird they use miles in the UK? I feel like I’ve heard so many British people try to dunk on Americans for our stupid measurements, but they’re still putting off the switch to kilometers while using metric for basically everything else?)

And if you’re used to running 1500m, running an extra 100 meters (109.344, but who’s counting) has to feel bewildering to your body. For a longer race like the 3000m and 5000m, you’re likely pacing yourself and then kicking for a near-sprint finish. But the 1500m is about as long as runners can sustain a flat-out pace.

Then, when running a mile, they have to do that for another 100 meters. It makes sense that that extra 100m is when Kerr’s body decided to throw hearing out the window.

But I suspect we won’t have to wait 27 years for the next record. We’ve seen a few different mile records fall in the last few years: Faith Kipyegon set the women’s record in 2023, and the indoor record fell twice in two weeks in 2025.

The green jersey — or the maillot vert — goes to the rider who accumulates the most points at the Tour de France. Points are awarded for winning or placing highly on stage finishes, as well as on each stage's intermediate checkpoint. Point totals are weighted more heavily towards stages with flatter profiles, thus generally rewarding more powerful, sprinter-y riders, and ensuring that Pogačar doesn't just auto-win the competition by being the most dominant climber.

The green jersey competition receives much less fanfare than the yellow jersey competition, but some teams at the Tour de France approach it with the same amount of focus and resources as if they were trying to win cycling's most famous prize.

And this year, the green jersey competition has been a banger. Initially, it looked like Mads Pedersen of Lidl-Trek would walk away with it, taking a commanding lead during the second week. Not only is he a strong sprinter, but he's also a solid-enough climber to get well ahead of his competitors on lumpy stages and gobble up all the points at the intermediate sprints, essentially uncontested.

But late in the second week and early in the final week, Jasper Philipsen of Alpecin-Premier Tech found his legs and chipped away at Pedersen's lead, pulling within seven points after a win on Stage 17. (It's now a not-insurmountable 32 points after Stage 18.) 

Long story short: Philipsen's comeback sets up what could be one of the most exciting final stages of the Tour we've seen in a long time.

Stage 21 is historically a glorified parade to the finish line, with the overarching prizes largely determined and everybody ready to be done riding their bike. But with a maximum of 75 green jersey points on offer for the stage — 25 for winning the intermediate, and 50 for the stage win — Philipsen, Pedersen, and their teams will be racing hell-bent to secure the green jersey.

It should be advantage Pedersen. He'll enter with a cushion in the standings, and the relatively hilly profile, climbing Montmartre three times before the traditional flat-out sprint on the Champs-Élysées, suits him well. But Philipsen is the faster rider if the race comes down to a head-to-head sprint. Factor in the setting — the most famous avenue in one of the most beautiful cities in the world — and you have the makings of a fireworks finale to one of the lengthiest and most grueling races in the world.

Before that, though, we should see the white jersey competition (and the two podium places behind Pogačar) decided on two massive mountain days finishing on the famed Alpe d'Huez.

The white jersey — maillot blanc — goes to the best young rider (under 26) at the Tour de France. This year, that battle happens to be between the third- and fourth-place riders on the overall standings. It feels like a battle for the future of the Tour. 

The current white jersey-wearer: Mexico's Isaac del Toro, who is also Pogačar's teammate on UAE Team Emirates XRG. (The UAE squad is loaded; your Bama/Yankees/PSG/etc. equivalent.)

The 22-year-old won Stage 2 and has finished Top 3 five times, which is especially impressive because he's been riding in support of Pogačar, often gassing himself to give Pogačar his wheel. Del Toro will be a favorite to win the Tour de France when/if Pogačar starts to slip and/or decides he's done with it.

But he may never receive a fraction of the attention as 19-year-old Paul Seixas: France's great hope to end what is now a 41-year drought without winning the yellow jersey.

Seixas is already one of the fastest riders in the world as a teenager. During the spring, when cycling's biggest one-day races take place, he was one of the few riders to threaten Pogačar's dominance, taking second to him at Strade Bianche and Liège-Bastogne-Liège, two of the most prestigious races of the year. 

Seixas' decision to ride the Tour this year was somewhat controversial. Many people rightfully questioned whether a 19-year-old would be mentally and physically ready to handle three weeks of the most intense racing on offer in cycling, especially in his home country where the media attention would be unrelenting.

But Seixas has handled the Tour with aplomb. The key indicator is the third week. Until the Tour, Seixas had never competed in a race longer than eight stages. He'll nearly triple that workload by the end of the Tour, and his fourth-place finish in Tuesday's time trial (five seconds ahead of Del Toro) suggests he has the legs to go the distance. 

Stages 19 and 20 are two of the hardest days of this year's Tour, both finishing on Alpe d'Huez. (Each day will go up a different side of the mountain.) Behind Pogačar, all eyes will be on Del Toro and Seixas to see how the youngsters mark each other and handle the pressure and difficulty of two brutal stages with roughly 1,800 miles of racing already in their legs. 

After Stage 18, Del Toro leads Seixas for the white jersey by just 20 seconds. Given the time gaps that are likely to open up on the mountain slopes, that difference is effectively a draw. There's a chance that the two riders end up 2-3 on the podium in some order. Whoever wins will score the first blow in what could be the next great rivalry of the Tour de France.

The biggest story of the NBA offseason to me is that nobody knows what is going to happen with Kawhi Leonard, whose trade to the Toronto Raptors is on hold pending the results of the investigation into the Clippers’ alleged attempts to manipulate the salary cap by paying him side money through fake endorsement deals.

A quick timeline: Pablo Torre’s podcast uncovered the scandal on Sept. 3, 2025, and the NBA quickly hired an external law firm to conduct an investigation. At the NBA Finals in June, commissioner Adam Silver announced that the nine-month old investigation was “far along.” On June 30, the Raptors traded for Leonard. On July 9, the Raptors announced they are putting the trade on hold because Leonard could be punished for the scandal. (It would be dumb to give up valuable assets for a player who could be suspended, or whose contract could be voided.) Silver then followed up to say that he expects the investigation to wrap up this summer.

HOW LONG IS THE SUMMER, ADAM?!?!?!?!?!!?

Does he mean “the end of the offseason?” Does he mean Labor Day? Does he mean the autumnal equinox? Does he mean when he gets back from the beach?

Leonard is still great — he finished seventh last season in MVP voting, sixth in points per game, and fifth in PER — and the Raptors could legitimately be the best team in the Eastern Conference if they pull off this trade. But we don’t know if they’re going to do that because lawyers are still racking up billable hours.

The second-wildest thing to happen this NBA offseason is the Celtics trading Jaylen Brown for Paul George and an unimpressive haul of draft picks. Brown finished fourth in points per game and sixth in MVP voting, while George finished 69th and n/a. From a basketball perspective, everybody agrees that the Celtics downgraded.

The Celtics made it clear that their motivations were financial: Executive Brad Stevens said the team’s path to a championship was “challenging with 70 percent of the cap and such a high percentage of our usage tied up in two players.” The Celtics, who were recently purchased by a private equity executive and a private equity firm, were more concerned with the team’s long-term finance sheets than their ability to win the title in 2027.

Even for Knicks fans celebrating the first NBA championship of our lifetimes, the tone of the offseason quickly changed when it became clear owner James Dolan wouldn’t be maintaining the roster, saying that, from a team-building perspective, “you’d have to be suicidal” to go into the second apron.

Afterwards, the Knicks let Mitchell Robinson, the team’s longest-tenured player and one of the best offensive rebounders in NBA history, leave in free agency for the Celtics.

Don’t worry, I’ve still managed to spend most of the last month wearing Knicks championship gear and yelling WE DID IT at other people wearing Knicks championship gear.

(We did it.)

You might think from the way teams and media talk about the second apron that it’s illegal to surpass that $221 million figure. It’s not! Teams can do it! They just don’t want to.

I don’t buy the idea that it’s “suicidal” to go into the second apron! Sure, it comes with a handful of restrictions that make it harder to build a roster — second apron teams can’t sign-and-trade players, use certain salary cap exceptions, trade draft picks seven years in the future, and more — but they’re not team killers. And besides, those restrictions are somewhat irrelevant for teams like the Knicks or Celtics that already have competitive rosters.

The “second apron” talk buys cheapskate owners cover for their unwillingness to spend on winning teams. The real reason people like James Dolan and the Celtics’ private equity owners are unwilling to go past the second apron is because it comes with significant financial penalties. But they can cite obscure, tough-to-parse basketball ramifications and make their savings sound savvy.

When the NBA’s players’ association agreed to the second apron — a decision it now regrets — it probably assumed relatively minor off-court penalties wouldn’t prevent teams from making these moves.

The positive is that teams’ unwillingness to stack stars has increased league parity. The Celtics are undoubtedly worse because of the Brown trade, and there’s been a new champion each of the last eight seasons, including the Knicks this past June.

(WE DID IT!)