Athletics: Walker re-runs the perfect way to break mile records

By Peter Jessup

Having Kenyan Noah Ngeny on his shoulder undoubtedly helped to spur Moroccan Hicham El Guerrouj along to his remarkable world mile record, according to Kiwi record-breaker John Walker.

"I only ever had one race like that - me and Filbert Bayi at the Commonwealth Games, and we both went under the world record," he said.

"And I only ever saw one other race like it - Steve Cram and Said Aouita in France [Nice, 1985] and they both went under the world record. It's the perfect scenario to break records because usually it's just one rabbit way out front against the clock and you'll always run faster if you're pushed, you dig deeper and find something more."

The Rome track where El Guerrouj lowered the mile mark by 1.26s to 3m 43.13s is conducive to middle-distance running. It is one of only a few circuits in Europe with a rock-hard mondo surface, which Walker describes as like running on carpet on top of concrete. There is no give and no kickback, meaning it offers speed to the 800m and 1500m runners but is harder on the mid-to-long-distance athletes.

El Guerrouj broke the world 1500m mark on the same track at the same Golden League meeting last July, and the mile mark of Algerian Noureddine Morceli he broke yesterday was also set at the Rome track, in 1993.

El Guerrouj was a 5000m and cross-country runner who won a scholarship to a United States college and has trained at altitude in the US for the past three years.

Walker, who has met him, describes the Moroccan as "tall [1.76m], thin [58kg], flexible - he has everything you need to be a middle-distance runner."

How fast can the mile be run? "It's taken nearly 25 years to bring it down five seconds since my time," Walker said. "You'd have to say that in another 10 to 12 years someone will run under three minutes 40."

So how is the improvement coming? "Good question." Walker does not like drugs and does not like his sport tarnished the way it has been.

"It doesn't matter who you are or what your performance has been, people will always cast aspersions because we now live in a world of manufactured sports people."

But he does feel far more comfortable with El Guerrouj's time because the Moroccan has come through the grades, winning age-group world titles and showing through consistent top performances that he was always capable of breaking a world record. The Kenyan Ngeny he has never heard of.

How come New Zealand has not produced any great middle-distance runners to follow the history created by the likes of Peter Snell, Dick Quax, Rod Dixon, Lorraine Moller, Alison Roe, Anne Audain and Walker?

"One: we never capitalised on it. We didn't do anything and neither did Britain or the United States and now we're all way behind.

"And two: athletes today want to be paid before they perform. They want to be full-time, paid professionals but they only do enough to make the team, not enough to win. They are too preoccupied by shrinks and science. We came from a tough school and unfortunately it doesn't exist anymore."

And one other thing. Kenyan great Kip Keino once told Walker that he ran 20 miles to and from school every day. "The Africans ran to feed and educate their families. They have the same motivation today."