New Zealand’s middle-distance prodigy Sam Ruthe has become the youngest person in history to break the four-minute-mile barrier. Video / Athletics NZ, Tyron Lagerwall
One of Hawke’s Bay’s four sub-four-minute milers is resigned to the reality that it’s only a matter of time before a national record he’s had for 36 years is claimed by teenage running sensation Sam Ruthe.
Richard Potts ran the national secondary school senior boys 1500 metres in 3min 46.92secas an 18-year-old pupil of St John’s College, Hastings, in Auckland in 1989, less than two months before running the 5000m on the same track at the 1990 Commonwealth Games.
In December, the 15-year-old Ruthe, of Tauranga Boys’ College, won the junior boys title in a record-breaking 3m 49.2s; on February 9 he ran a 1500m world age-group best of 3m 41.25s, and on Wednesday he became the youngest person in the world to run the mile (an extra 109 metres) in under four minutes.
Hastings running coach Richard Potts is resigned to the fact his national schools' 1500m record, set in 1989, is under threat from Sam Ruthe. Photo / NZME
Pitted together in 2025, and based on the pair’s respective teenage 1500m times, Ruthe would win by about 40 metres, says Potts.
Ruthe could be back in Hastings for a crack at his record as early as December, when the schools' championships are to be held at the Mitre 10 Hawke’s Bay Regional Sports Park.
But the “amazing” thing is Ruthe, who broke the schools’ junior boys 1500m record in Timaru in December, with a time of 3m 49.2s, is expected to have two more years at high school in New Zealand.
Sam Ruthe (right) on Wednesday night became the youngest person in history to break the four-minute-mile barrier, in 3m 58.35s. Photo / Michael Dawson Athletics NZ
Now 53, Potts jokes that if he’s to retain the record, one of the two longest-surviving senior records at the annual schools' championships, he may need divine intervention, like praying for wind, rain, hail and snow whenever Ruthe runs at the championships.
“Yes, I still hold the record,” he said on Friday. “But not for long, I think. My son texted me on Wednesday night [after Ruthe’s run] and said: ‘Your record’s smoked’.”
Potts recalls the day of his record clearly, as a “perfect” race. With him pushed all the way by 800m specialist Eddie Crowe, the two were separated by just 0.37s at the line.
Richard Potts in the national 5000m championship in Hastings in 2002. Two years earlier he completed a back-to-back national championships winning double at 5000m and 10,000m. Photo / NZME
Given the quality of New Zealanders in the event, he’s surprised the record has lasted so long. He thought it would go when Sam Tanner ran the final in his last year at high school – until the weather intervened.
The sub-four mile, first run by English athlete Roger Bannister in May 1954, has now been achieved by 1700 runners, including 50 New Zealanders.
The first Hawke’s Bay runner to go under four minutes was Tony Polhill, from Central Hawke’s Bay, with a time of 3m 57s in England in September 1972. Potts ran his 3m 59.8s in Christchurch in 1993, Hamish Christensen had four, starting with 3m 58.06s at Cook’s Garden, Whanganui, in January 1997 and including a best of 3m 56.13s on the same track two years later, and Eric Speakman ran 3m 57.3s in Whanganui in January 2016.
He currently trains 25-30 athletes at distances from 400m to the 42.195km marathon, with already a string of global events to their names, and another son heading to the European Orienteering Championships this year.
Doug Laing is a senior reporter based in Napier with Hawke’s Bay Today, and has 52 years of journalism experience, 42 of them in Hawke’s Bay, in news gathering, including breaking news, sports, local events, issues, and personalities.
