Sam Ruthe just rewrote the record books. The 16 year old from Tauranga, New Zealand crossed the line in 3:48.88 at the John Thomas Terrier Classic in Boston on January 31, obliterating the world under 18 mile record and breaking Sir John Walker’s 44 year old New Zealand national record in the process.
Walker ran 3:49.08 in Oslo in 1982 at the age of 30. Ruthe is 16.
The race unfolded like something out of a movie. Ruthe sat behind Belgium’s Pieter Sisk through the early laps, biding his time on Boston University’s notoriously fast indoor track. With 100 metres to go, he unleashed a closing kick that left a field of professionals in his wake, winning by 1.43 seconds over Sisk (3:50.31) with Davis Bove third in 3:51.08.
This was meant to be a rust buster. Ruthe had travelled 50 hours from New Zealand three days earlier, including an unplanned 24 hour stopover in San Francisco due to a winter storm. His legs were heavy. He expected to run under 3:55.
Instead, he ran the 11th fastest indoor mile in history.
The genetics help explain it. Ruthe’s grandmother Rosemary Stirling (now Wright) won 800m gold at the 1970 Commonwealth Games for Scotland and made the Olympic final in Munich 1972. His grandfather Trevor Wright ran the world’s fastest debut marathon in the early 1970s. Both parents, Ben and Jess, are national champion runners who have represented New Zealand.
But genetics only gets you to the start line. Ruthe spent his first five days of life on life support with infant respiratory distress syndrome, needing near 100% oxygen saturation. The fact he can breathe at all, let alone at altitude while running 3:48, is remarkable.
The progression has been staggering. Last March, at 15 years old, Ruthe became the youngest person ever to break four minutes in the mile with a 3:58.35 in Auckland. In the past three months alone, he has dropped his 800m personal best from 1:50 to 1:45. A week before Boston, he ran 3:53.83 outdoors at the Cooks Classic, a world record for a 16 year old. Then he flew to Boston and took five seconds off that.
New Zealand has no indoor tracks. The Terrier Classic was Ruthe’s first ever indoor mile.
He trains under Craig Kirkwood alongside Sam Tanner, a Kiwi Olympian. The group dynamic pushes him, but the reality of developing a world class athlete from the Bay of Plenty means 50 hour travel days to find competition. His father put it simply: the time Sam ran is faster than anyone has ever run in New Zealand, so to keep developing, he needs to travel.
Ruthe has three more mile races scheduled this month before returning home for the New Zealand national championships in March. He said after the race there is more in the tank. Given what we just witnessed, that is a terrifying thought for everyone else.
At 16, Sam Ruthe is already the fastest miler in New Zealand history. By the time he is old enough to vote, he might be the fastest in the world.