Mile Run - History

History

The distance of the English mile gained its current definition of 5,280 feet through a statute of the Parliament of England in 1593. Thus, the history of the mile run began in England and it initially found usage within the wagered running contests of the 18th and 19th century. Such contests would attract large numbers of spectators and gamblers – so many that the activity became a professional one for its more-established participants.

The mile run was at the heart of the divide between professional and amateur sports in the late 19th century. Separate world record categories were kept for amateurs and professionals, with professional runners providing the faster times. High profile contests between Britons William Cummings and Walter George brought much publicity to the sport, as did George's races against the American Lon Myers. The mile run was also one of the foremost events at the amateur AAA Championships. The categories remained distinct but the respective rise in amateurism and decline of the professional sector saw the division become irrelevant in the 20th century.

The mile run continued to be a popular distance in spite of the metrification of track and field and athletics in general. It was the 1500 metres – referred to as the metric mile – which was featured on the Olympic athletics programme. The International Amateur Athletics Federation formed in 1912 and ratified the first officially recognised world record in the mile the following year (4:14.4 minutes run by John Paul Jones). The fact that the mile run was the only imperial distance to retain its official world record status after 1970 reflects its continued popularity in the international (and principally metric) era.

The top men's middle distance runners continued to compete in the mile run in the first half of the 1900s – Paavo Nurmi, Jack Lovelock and Sydney Wooderson were all world record holders over the distance. In the 1940s, Swedish runners Gunder Hägg and Arne Andersson pushed times into a new territory, as they set three world records each during their rivalry over the decade. The act of completing a sub-four-minute mile sparked further interest in the distance in the 1950s. Englishman Roger Bannister became the first person to achieve the feat in May 1954 and his effort, conducted with the help of Chris Brasher and Chris Chataway, was a key moment in the rise of the use of pacemakers at the top level of the sport – an aspect which is now commonplace at non-championship middle and long-distance races.

The 1960s saw American Jim Ryun set world records near the 3:50-minute mark and his achievements popularised interval workout techniques. From this period onwards, African runners began to emerge, breaking the largely white, Western dominance of the distance. Kenya's Kip Keino won the mile at at the 1966 British Empire and Commonwealth Games (which was among the last mile races to be held at a major multi-sport event). Filbert Bayi of Tanzania became Africa's world record holder over the distance in 1975, although New Zealander John Walker broke the record further a few months later to become the first man under 3:50 minutes for the event. The 1980s was highlighted by the rivalry between British runners Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett, who improved the record five times between them, including two records at the Oslo Dream Mile race. Noureddine Morceli brought the mile record back into African hands in 1993 and Morocco's Hicham El Guerrouj set the current record of 3:43.13, which has stood since 1999.

Mile run contests remain a key feature of many annual track and field meetings, with long-running series such as the Wanamaker Mile at the Millrose Games, Dream Mile at the Bislett Games, the British Emsley Carr Mile, and the Bowerman Mile at the Prefontaine Classic being among the most prominent. Aside from track races, mile races are also occasionally contested in cross country running and mile runs on the road include the Fifth Avenue Mile in New York City