Mills 'can be in mix with best' after smashing UK record

BBC News

15 hours ago

New British men's 5,000m record-holder George Mills says beating Sir Mo Farah's long-standing benchmark shows he "can be in the mix with the best" racers in the world and compete for major championship success.Mills finished fourth in an extremely quick race at the Diamond League event in Oslo, but clocked 12 minutes 46.59 seconds to beat Sir Mo Farah's previous UK best of 12:53.11 which had stood for 14 years.As well as knocking more than six seconds off the British record, Mills also beat his personal best by more than 12 seconds.He was watched in the Norwegian capital by his family including his father, former England footballer Danny Mills, who described the achievement as "very special".
For George, this record represents a huge boost after missing the World Indoor Championships, external with a virus.But he said he was now firmly back on track, with his eyes on the World Championships in Tokyo in September."This is the best result of my career," he said, speaking exclusively to BBC Sport from Stockholm where he competes in the next leg of the Diamond League on Sunday."I've got a couple of European silvers, but this means we're on the right track and can be in the mix with the best."After missing the 2025 World Indoors in Nanjing in March, Mills and his team had focused on 1500m races so as to avoid tiring him out over longer distances.Fully fresh, Mills said this was the first 5,000m race he had attempted to "time trial" for 18 months - and it paid off."I compete over 1500m and 5,000m, and with 5,000m you need to be more selective with races as it is so taxing on the body," he said. "Eight laps makes a big difference."In 5,000m you have to choose when you attack, so that's why we've waited so long to do this. But now I'm in the best shape of my life."
'It's a family where you don't rest on your laurels'
Despite breaking the record, when meeting with his family after the race George was reminded by his younger brother - Oxford United footballer Stanley Mills - that he had only finished fourth."We're all like that," George said with a smile of his high-achieving sporting family. "When you achieve something like that, you can always do something better."According to his father, George has always had the drive and goal-orientated mindset to keep achieving more.Danny Mills - who won 19 England caps and played at the 2002 World Cup - said being from a family which had never settled after success was playing a part in his son's improvement."He's grown up in that world, seen how I was, and you don't always understand what kids take in," Mills senior told BBC Sport."It's a family where you don't rest on your laurels. His success is brilliant, but brief, and you have to keep working hard."Even so, former Leeds and Manchester City defender Mills acknowledged that obliterating a record set by multiple Olympic gold winner Farah was something special."To eclipse a record that has stood for 14 years, breaking the record of a world legend like Mo Farah, that is very special," he said."It was a fantastic night in Oslo - we travel the world, we don't miss many events as a family."We always get to see him post-race, sometimes we have to wait a long time, as he has his warm down and drugs testing to do. We waited up, and saw him after midnight."While Mills was caught by Nico Young of the United States in the final 400m, after he led at the bell, his performance laid down a marker in a race which turned into an assault on the world record set by Joshua Cheptegei in 2020."He was brave, it looked like the race would be tactical but he took it on from two laps out," said Danny. "You become the rabbit, but he was really keen to break the British record."