Mile Record Turns Ten

It has been ten years since we've seen a new open world record in the one mile run.

Ten years ago today, on July 7 1999 in Rome, Morocco's Hicham El Guerrouj ran one mile in 3:43.13, breaking Nourredine Mourceli's world record. El Guerrouj, considered by many to be the greatest middle distance runner of all time, was chased to the line by Kenya's Noah Ngeny, who ran 3:43.40, a time that was also well under the old record. There's no doubt that the competition between the two in the final stretch helped both men eke out every last hundredth of a second.

3:43.13 and 3:43.40 are still the top two mile times in history, the only times under 3:44. After that race, El Guerrouj never ran within 1.5 seconds of his record. No other runner since has come within 3 seconds of it. Here's a video of the race -- well worth watching over and over...



Most people believe that eventually someone will run faster... eventually, but when? The mile record has never lasted this long before, at least not since there has been an international sanctioning body for track and field.

Has the record lasted so long because the mile isn't run as often as the 1500m? That might explain why the current 1500m record (El Guerrouj's 3:26.00 from 1998) is superior to the current mile record, but the all-time list for the 1500 shows that no one since 2004 has run under 3:29. Basically, no one has been close to the record in the last five years.

Is the record tainted by some still hidden drug scandal? I find that more than a little hard to believe... El Guerrouj was the best miler/1500m runner in the world for over 8 years. And other than Ngeny and, later, Bernard Lagat, no one was even close to El Guerrouj.

I think that the record was put "way out there" because El Guerrouj was truly ahead of his time in talent -- maybe in twenty years we'll see dozens of people running under 3:44 for the mile, but it will take a while for the world to catch up with the Moroccan. And also, that race for the line was magic. I've tried to figure when have two men both run faster than the existing mile world record in a single race? I can't think of a time, although I can imagine it happened at some point.

By the way, the women's world record for the mile is in a similar state of stasis. The current women’s record is 4:12.56 by Svetlana Masterkova of Russia, set on August 14, 1996. The #2 time is over three seconds slower, and was set in 1989.

In the case of the women's record, I think two things are different: first, there ARE fewer one mile runs at major competitions. Second, seven of the top ten times were run by athletes from The Soviet Union, Russia, or Romania from the mid 1980s to mid 1990s. I'm not saying that Eastern European countries were the only ones with doping issues, but I do -- sadly -- discount many of the times run in that era.

So back to the anniversary of the El Guerrouj - Ngeny Dual in Rome: will we see anything similar in the near future, or will we wait another 10 years for someone to go under 3:43?

One hopeful sign that we might not have to endure without a new record for so long was the performance of Asbel Kiprop at the Prefontaine Classic in June of this year. Kiprop won the Bowerman mile, running 3:48.50. In the final 100m he crossed himself twice, raised his hands over his head to clap to the crowd, crossed himself again, and wagged his finger, all while looking like he was strolling through an easy strider. He looked entirely untroubled by the effort.

Now we just need someone who can push him all the way to the line.