Sam Ruthe had the eyes of thousands on him when he stepped onto a running track in Auckland just over a week ago. Undaunted by the occasion, Ruthe went on to become the first 15-year-old to run a sub-four-minute mile, even managing a nonchalant shrug of the shoulders as he crossed the finish line. The race was almost entirely engineered for the high school student to break the fabled four-minute barrier – a feat first achieved by Roger Bannister more than 70 years ago – but the weight of running history was a burden that Ruthe seemed to bear lightly.
The first three laps, he later said in a video documenting the race, “felt pretty comfortable – nothing too crazy.” Perhaps the most intimidating part of his achievement occurred when Ruthe returned to school the next day, only to be immediately called into the principal’s office. “He’s like, ‘Alright, so you’re gonna have to go up on stage and we’ll get the whole school to clap you,’” Ruthe tells CNN Sports’ Patrick Snell. “It was really scary, actually. I headed into class and everyone thought I was famous.” It’s easy to forget, given his history-making performance last week, that Ruthe is like most other 15-year-olds in New Zealand. He goes to school, spends time with his friends, and helps with chores around the house.
He also just happens to be one of the most exciting middle-distance runners on the planet, one of the latest star athletes to emerge from sports-mad New Zealand. “Every morning I come downstairs and he’s already done the dishwasher, he’s already packed his lunch, and he’s ready to go,” Ruthe’s father, Ben, tells CNN Sports. “He’s just a disciplined kid. He goes to bed early, he looks after himself, he eats well, he looks after his sister. He’s just a good kid around the house in all ways, really. We’re very lucky.”
Ruthe is next due to compete in the 1,500 meters at the Maurie Plant Meet in Melbourne on Saturday, and one target time to aim for will be his dad’s fastest time of 3:41.22 – three hundredths of a second faster than Ruthe’s current personal best. But he still has a way to go before he can call himself the most decorated runner in his family. Dad Ben and mom Jess are both former national champions who represented New Zealand on the world stage, while his maternal grandparents won European championship medals for Great Britain.
His grandmother, Rosemary Stirling, arguably had the most impressive achievement: an 800m Commonwealth Games title from 1970. Despite his family pedigree, Ruthe was never under any pressure to take running seriously. His parents, in fact, didn’t allow him or his sister Daisy to train at all until they were 13, never wanting their identities to be tied solely to running. “It feels like it’s the right decision about now,” says Ben. But as he gradually starts to realize his potential, Ruthe, when pushed, admits to having big goals in the sport.
“If I had to pick one thing, definitely Olympic gold,” he says. “I feel like that’s most runners’ dream and the biggest thing you can actually win. So that’ll definitely be the top of my bucket list.” The 2032 Olympics in Brisbane, Ruthe adds, would be a nice target. And as for the Los Angeles Games in three years’ time? “I’d actually love to try and qualify for LA 28,” he says. “I feel like that’ll be a tough goal. But if I do that, I’ll be really happy.”
Already, Ruthe’s name is being mentioned in the same breath as Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen, the most successful middle-distance of this generation. It was his record as the youngest-ever four-minute miler that Ruthe took last week, and the New Zealander also beat Ingebrigtsen’s 1,500m record for a 15-year-old earlier this year.
Ingebrigtsen’s success, Ruthe says, has given him hope that he too can “have a good future” in the sport. But his biggest source of motivation comes not from the two-time Olympic champion, but from those closest to him – his training group led by coach Craig Kirkwood and athlete Sam Tanner. The pair were instrumental in Ruthe’s recent mile time of 3:58.35, and it was five-time national champion Tanner who paced him perfectly around four laps of the track on his way to the record.
To show his gratitude, Ruthe is auctioning off the shoes he wore for the four-minute mile to raise funds for Kirkwood, Tanner and their youth development group, with the highest bid currently standing at NZ$10,000 (just over $5,700).
For his father, it’s a source of huge pride that Ruthe is unwilling to forget those who have helped him on his journey – something demonstrated by a readiness to part with the record-setting running shoes. “To see my son be able to give away probably his most valuable possession in the world to help those around him?” says Ben. “It means a lot to me.
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