Sam Tanner enjoys the crowd support after winning the Cooks Classic mile on Saturday night. Photo / Michael Dawson Athletics New Zealand
Cooks Gardens lived up to its name, “The Home of the Mile”, when Sam Tanner became the 80th sub 4-minute miler and Sam Ruthe the 81st after another epic race at the Pak’nSave Cooks Gardens International Classic on Saturday.
Olympian Sam Tanner won the race from sensational 16-year-old Tauranga training partner Sam Ruthe.
Tanner battled with Ruthe the whole length of the home straight in front of a loud and noisy crowd.
Tanner’s win was his fourth consecutive New Zealand Mile title and now equals Nick Willis’ record of five sub 4-minute miles on the iconic track.
Tanner’s winning time of 3 minutes 53.36 seconds moves him from fifth fastest on the Cooks Gardens Roll of Honour to third surpassing Peter Snell’s World Record performance (3:54.4) and that of Jurgen May (3:53.8).
That performance by the East German May remains the fastest grass track mile ever run.
Only Nick Willis (3:52.78) and Craig Mottram Australia (3:53.14) have run faster at Cooks Gardens, in the pre-Melbourne Commonwealth Mayoral Mile in 2006 (Willis went on to win in Melbourne).
The 2006 race, unlike Saturday, was run on a warm, still, beautiful February evening as opposed to the cool, breezy conditions that prevailed on Saturday.
Teenager Ruthe produced a world best for a 16-year-old, surpassing the previous mark by over a second in another sensational performance.
As back in 1962, when Peter Snell broke the world record that put Cooks Gardens on the world athletics map, both Tanner and Ruthe ran fast 800m races on the previous Saturday.
Ruthe just headed Tanner at the Potts Classic, both setting personal bests 1:45.86 and 1:45.94, respectively.
The women’s mile was won by Ireland’s Laura Nicholson in 4:43.75.
The breezy conditions made it hard for Nicholson to add her name to the eight women who have run the female equivalent of sub 4-minute miles (4 minutes 36 seconds).
After almost continuous rain throughout the day, it stopped in time for the 4pm start.
Except for a five-minute downpour, just after the spectacular flyover as part of the opening ceremony, the meeting was conducted in clear, if windy conditions.
Only one stadium record was broken and that came from heptathlete Maddie Wilson with her 1.85m high jump surpassing Australian Nicola McDermott’s 1.83m.
McDermott (Olyslagers) later became the first Australian to jump 2m and won the world title last year.
Olympic and world champion Hamish Kerr did not jump but was on hand to support girlfriend Wilson while signing autographs and sharing selfies with excited young and old.
Wilson had an excellent day, not only winning the high jump but also finishing second in the shot (11.97) and second in the 400m with a personal best of 55.73.
Whanganui was well worth the journey for Wilson who returned home with substantial prize money.
Her personal best 400m put her in the caption for the sealed handicap but she had to settle for her personal best.
The handicap prize went to David Mandengo (second in B Race).
The A race was won by Gustav Nielsen (Denmark) with a good out-of-season 46.37.
Nielsen runs in the Team Ledger Capital Classic at the weekend and the Sir Graeme Douglas meet in Auckland a week later, looking for faster times on his short southern hemisphere tour.
Sprint races were run on the back straight to take advantage of the tailwind.
The athletes welcomed this opportunity with Tiaan Whelpton taking the male 60m, 100m double - the latter just three one hundredths of a second of going under 10 seconds (10.02 seconds) and 8.56 seconds in the 60m.
Oceania record holder Zoe Hobbs took a similar double in the women’s event (7.11 and 11.09 seconds respectively).
Unfortunately, the strong tail winds negated any records, but nevertheless provided fast times welcomed by athletes.
Local Jonathan Maples won the opening 400m hurdles in an identical time to last year in much less favourable conditions.
Maples ran a personal best 400m split in the winning NZ Mixed 4 x 400 relay team the next day.
The slight delay with a technical issue in the 400m hurdles, followed by the eight heats needed for 100m meant that the final round of hammer and shot featuring just the leading three athletes did not get exclusive coverage.
The excellent win by Olympian Laura Bruce in the hammer (70.93) and Nick Palmer in the shot (19.51) might have been even better with all the large crowd focused on that final.
Athletic attention turns to Wellington with the Sola Power Throws meet on Saturday and the Capital Classic on Sunday.