Easy trivia question

[Guest]

As most of us know, Jim Ryun ran a 3:59.0 mile as a 17 schoolboy (at 18, he ran 3:55.3.) Question: What 17 year old schoolboy ran a 3:57.4 mile?

[Guest]

Alan Webb

[Guest]

gh will know or maybe J Squire, El Supremo or Tafnut, but I think it might be Kevin Sullivan...when he was in high school in Canada.

[Guest]

Steve Cram 3:57.43, July 1978
What "17-year-old" ran a 3:35.16 (=3:52.3 mile) ?

[tafnut]

Well, Cornelius Chirchir ran that time in 2000, but how certain are we that he was a '17-year-old schoolboy'?

[MJD]

>gh will know or maybe J Squire, El Supremo or
>Tafnut, but I think it might be Kevin
>Sullivan...when he was in high school in
>Canada.
He didn't break 4 until he was 19 in his last year of high school. He went 3:39.11(a superior performance) when he was 18 the year before. Don't know what he did as a 17 year old in the 1500.

[Guest]

>>gh will know or maybe J Squire, El Supremo
>or
>Tafnut,

I'm amazed that someone thinks I know this. I wouldn't even know where to look it up. I doesn't surprise me, though. In general, runners who are great in U-18 competition rarely continue to improve. Ryun and Ovett are two exceptions to the rule. I remember reading that while Ryun ran something like 4:06 when he was 16, Keino ran about 5:40 at the same age (albeit under vastly different conditions). Don't hold me to specific numbers, though -- I'm going purely by memory!

[MJD]

>In general, runners who are great in
>U-18 competition rarely continue to improve.
>Ryun and Ovett are two exceptions to the rule.

So is Sully.

[G.Ahearn]

Congrats to bforsyth. Steve Cram set a world age-17 mile best with a 3:57.43 in 1978. (FYI: It made SI's "faces in the crowd.")

[gh]

>>In general, runners who are great in
>U-18
>competition rarely continue to improve.
>Ryun
>and Ovett are two exceptions to the rule.

So
>is Sully.>>

Well, actually, I don't think he is, simply becuase he wasn't "great" as a U-18 miler. Had a 1:48.3 half, but don't think he was anything better than about a 3:45 guy in the 1500, was he?

[MJD]

I guess it depends on your definition of great but, you're right, he didn't really shine until he was 18 as opposed to 17. 3:39.11 which is the equivalent of a 3:56.77. Pretty sure he was just a smidgen over 3:45 at age 17. He first showed signs of being a prodigy when he was about 14, however, and pb'd at the mile and 1500 12 years later and I was more focussing on the part of the post that talked about "rarely continuing to improve".

[Guest]

I don't think it applies only to distance running. How many of T&FN's HS AOYs became US AOYs? Not many, to be sure. (I suppose I could look it up myself!)