{"id":250091,"date":"2026-01-24T20:58:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T20:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/250091\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T20:58:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T20:58:10","slug":"teen-athletics-star-sam-ruthe-smashes-mile-world-record-for-his-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/250091\/","title":{"rendered":"Teen athletics star Sam Ruthe smashes mile world record for his age"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Sam<\/p>\n

\nSam Ruthe.
\nPhoto: photosport\n<\/p>\n

Running sensation Sam Ruthe has become the fastest 16-year-old to ever run the mile, achieving the feat at the Cooks Classic in Whanganui on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

The Tauranga teenager clocked three minutes, 53.36 seconds to go under the former world record mark held by Australian Cam Myers.<\/p>\n

Ruthe was narrowly beaten to the finish line by two-time Olympian and training partner Sam Tanner, who helped push the youngster on, as he has done in other races on the domestic scene.<\/p>\n

“It feels incredible. That was my goal coming into this race. I was trying to beat Tanner as well, but as soon as the gun started, I just wanted to run as fast as possible,” Ruthe told TVNZ.<\/p>\n

“To lead out some of this race was something I felt I just had to do. I’ll hopefully get my time down faster.”<\/p>\n

Tanner, 25, defended his national men’s senior mile title, surging past Ruthe in the home straight to win in 3min 53.36sec.<\/p>\n

\"Sam<\/p>\n

\nSam Tanner and Sam Ruthe, 800m, Potts Classic, Mitre 10 Park, Hastings.
\nPhoto: Kerry Marshall\/Photosport\n<\/p>\n

It came a week after Ruthe pipped Tanner in an exciting 800m race at the Potts Classic in Hastings.<\/p>\n

Last year the pair finished in a dead heat in the final of the men’s 1500m at the national championships.<\/p>\n

Both will leave for the United States next week, with Ruthe eyeing four indoor mile races on successive weekends, in a campaign he believes will be important for his development.<\/p>\n

Ruthe is now seventh on the list of all-time New Zealand milers, having overtaken the legendary Sir Peter Snell.<\/p>\n

In other notable results, sprinters Tiaan Whelpton and Zoe Hobbs won the respective men’s and women’s 100m titles in sharp – though wind-assisted – times.<\/p>\n

Ireland’s Laura Nicholson ran a smart time of 4min 43.75sec to win the women’s mile.<\/p>\n

Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero, a daily newsletter<\/a> curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sam Ruthe. Photo: photosport Running sensation Sam Ruthe has become the fastest 16-year-old to ever run the mile,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250092,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-250091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}