Running: Whanganui Collegiate athletes get silver and bronze behind NZ's youngest sub 4-miler

Andre Hernandez, left, and Collegiate schoolmate Liam Back, right, pose with race winner Samuel Tanner after the Sir John Walker Junior Mile race in Auckland on Saturday.

Whanganui Collegiate's Liam Back and Andres Hernandez took the minor placings in the prestigious Sir John Walker Junior Mile at Auckland's Mt Smart Stadium on Saturday, behind the country's youngest sub-4 minute miler.

Part of Athletics Auckland Senior meet, the John Walker Under 20 invitational was won by Tauranga's prodigy runner Samuel Tanner, representing Waikato-Bay of Plenty, with a time of 4m 10.47s.

Back, who won the 800m and 1500m double for Under 18's at the NZ Track and Field Championships two weeks ago, was runnerup by four seconds in 4m 14.07s.

Hernandez, who missed running against Back in the 1500m final in Christchurch due to illness, claimed third spot on the podium in 4m 26.07s, as he led Aucklanders Jude Darby and David Moore home to round out the Top 5.

Tanner 18, is well known in Whanganui athletics circles after he became the youngest New Zealander to break the four minute mile barrier, which he achieved at Cooks Gardens in the Sir Peter Snell International Track Meeting at the start of this month.

The teenager finished second in the Senior race to Canberra's Rorey Hunter, with Tanner's 3m 58.4s time making him the 45th person to break the four minute mile at Cooks Gardens, while also breaking the junior record for the track which Nick Willis had held since 2001.

Back and Hernandez ran in the Junior Mile race at Cooks Gardens, with Back winning ahead of Hernandez, who held on for silver under the challenge of Palmerston North's Noah MacDermid.