A remarkable race by Elle (Elinor) Purrier - near perfect tactics. Her result was the second-best of all time, breaking Mary Decker’s 1982 US record.
Best moment is her furrowed brow after the finish, as she realizes her time (just under 4:17) is an absurd 8 seconds below her previous best. (She hasn’t yet realized that she has broken a 37-year-old record.)
I watched it on YouTube. Loved her reaction when the interviewer told her she’d just broken Decker’s record. That was a hell of a kick - she ran Klosterhalfen down; the German runner looked like she just didn’t have the legs to stay with Purrier for the last 25 meters.
I watched that yesterday; it was awesome! Her kick was fantastic!
I can’t see the link (country restriction). What color were her shoes?
White. I couldn’t get a good look, but I think they may have been Adidas. They weren’t Nike Vaporflys, if that’s what you were wondering.
I expect they are New Balance, as she is sponsored by NB.
It would be weird for her to be in Adidas, then. I thought I saw three black stripes, but didn’t get a good look. Not sure why Melbourne asked.
There’s a bit of a controversy in the running world regarding Nike Vaporflys. (Basically, that they give the runners a mechanical advantage.)
Elle went to High School in a very small town in Vermont just a couple miles from the Canadian border. My father and his five brothers graduated from that High School 75-85 years ago. Dad graduated in 1939. She grew up in an even smaller town where my father had a farm after he retired. (That town doesn’t have a high school).
Highly unusual for Vermont to be the home of a World Class Athlete that does not involve snow.
My Dad, still living BTW at age 98, knows the family. He summered in Vermont until just a few years ago.
Yep. Every record that has been broken in the past year - including Kipchoge’s 2-hour marathon-distance run - was in Nikes. (Although he was wearing their next iteration, the Alphafly.). …And now I realize why Melbourne asked. I can be a bit dense at times.
The IAAF has decided that the Vaporfly and Vaporfly Next% shoes are kosher, but not Alphaflys.
I was watching some event recently (probably the U.S. Olympic trials for the marathon) and the commentators briefly mentioned the advances in shoe design, and the rules on what shoes were legal. I would swear one of them said that shoes are allowed as long as they don’t return more energy than the runners put in to them. I remember wondering if they really need a rule that says that shoes can’t violate the laws of physics.
How often are mile races run these days, anyway? I wouldn’t think international meets would have it. Do many athletes train for the mile, and are there many opportunities to break the record?
They only need to return more energy that other shoes.
Theoretically you could have battery-powered hydraulic shoes that return more energy than the runner puts into them. No physics breaking there.
True, but I haven’t heard of any that do that. I think the extra weight of carrying batteries and hydraulic pumps in your shoes would negate the advantage of getting a slight energy boost.
You did. That was Leigh Diffey, Tim Hutchings, and Craig Masback, who were covering the Trials for NBC. (I had to look it up - I’m not that much of geek.) Hutchings didn’t like the revolution in times that the Vaporflys have created, since it’s been such an exponential leap in times. Masback, who is an employee of Nike, pointed out that the components of the Vaporflys - the foam midsoles and the carbon plates - have been around for decades. He’s the one who said the rules should only prevent any shoes that return 100% of the energy the athlete puts in. I think the Vaporflys return something like 80%.
As for the mile race, as I understand it, it’s considered something of a “legacy” distance. Most track races are indeed run in metric distances - 800, 400, 10,000, etc - but the mile has a certain weight of tradition; think Roger Bannister breaking the four-minute barrier. The race at which Purrier set her record is the Wanamaker Mile, the first race of which was run in 1926. The Millrose Games, the meet of which it’s part, began in 1908. It goes back before the metric system was widely adopted, at least in the Anglosphere. running coach can probably speak more authoritatively.
The mile is the only non-metric distance that is still eligible for world record consideration. Other non-metric distances(except the marathon as of 2004) can still be certified as a “world’s best” performance. The mile was retained due to historic and cultural significance.
The Olympics (1896-present) were metric only (except for single years with a 5 mile and 3 and 4 mile team races)