{"id":449151,"date":"2026-05-28T08:36:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T08:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/449151\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T08:36:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T08:36:08","slug":"sam-ruthe-closing-the-books-on-school-to-become-full-time-athlete","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/449151\/","title":{"rendered":"Sam Ruthe closing the books on school to become full-time athlete"},"content":{"rendered":"

School is set to take a back seat for Sam Ruthe, but he\u2019ll be learning in the school of life as he chases his running ambitions.<\/p>\n

The 17-year-old, who\u2019s broken multiple age-group world records<\/a> over the past couple of years, will finish up at Tauranga Boys’ College at the end of the year, missing his final year of school.<\/p>\n

“I feel like it\u2019s quite hard to balance a full lifestyle of training and then racing as well, especially at my level,” Ruthe said.<\/p>\n

“I\u2019m not sure if many athletes who are competing at the level I\u2019m competing have school, just because it gets in the way of recovery. Right now, life\u2019s a bit of a shambles trying to fuel and stay recovered. I find it\u2019s decreasing my performance quite a bit.”<\/p>\n

Teen athletics star Sam Ruthe reveals major decision about his future – Watch on TVNZ+<\/a><\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t a decision Ruthe and his parents made lightly.<\/p>\n

But it was reinforced when World Athletics\u2019 new qualification system and entry standards for the 2027 World Championships came out yesterday. The entry standards are now significantly tougher, and the best way for Ruthe to increase his chances of qualifying is to compete more and accumulate points.<\/p>\n

The middle-distance runner is looking to base himself in Europe next year, but has plenty to sort out before then.<\/p>\n

Last week he pulled out of the Commonwealth Games<\/a> due to injury, suffering a stress fracture of his fibula in April. Instead, he\u2019s now targeting the World Under 20 Athletics Championships in the United States in early August. It would be Ruthe\u2019s first race of the season.<\/p>\n

“I wouldn\u2019t go into a race if I wasn\u2019t aiming for top three,” he said. <\/p>\n

“I would love to podium, definitely, and I still think it\u2019s likely.”<\/p>\n

The 17-year-old runner will miss his final year at Tauranga Boys’ College. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

His injury has meant he\u2019s had to amend his training to maintain his fitness, spending plenty of time instead on the bike and in the pool.<\/p>\n

“In the last three days I\u2019ve probably biked a little over nine hours, all pretty high intensity. It\u2019s starting to feel really good and I don\u2019t get any fatigue on the bike.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"School is set to take a back seat for Sam Ruthe, but he\u2019ll be learning in the school…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":449152,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213,1756],"class_list":["post-449151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports","tag-tauranga-bay-of-plenty"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449151","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=449151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/449152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}