The real importance of Walker's record

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33929, 23 August 1975, Page 4

The real importance of Walker's record

John Walker’s world £ mile record is now his- ■> tory. With the furore ;> over it is possible to |; examine the real im-1; portance of the feat. ?

Metric races, although a relatively new thing for Kiwis, have been “old hat” in athletics for more than 20 years. Ten out of 12 “mile” races have been metric (1500 m making the odds 10 to 2 against a mile record being set. Even Roger Bannister’s first four-minute mile in 1954 was no revolutionary effort. All he did was to equal the metric mile record — 3 min 43 sec — of three others. The oldest of the record-holders, Gundar Hagg had recorded the time back in 1944.

Things have not changed today, in spite of the misconception that 1500 m is a different race to one English mile in terms of effort required. An extra 50 odd steps is next to nothing for the athlete who has already run several minutes in oblivion. The fastest recorded time for the gap between 1500 m and the mile is 12.8 secs and Walker has done it in 12.9 secs. But both these times were the result of relatively slow starts and a

tremendously fast finishing i sprint. Fifteen seconds is the average time needed and Walker’s 15.1 sec for the last stretch in the record mile means that, in a welljudged race, he could cover the total distance in 3min 47.5 secs (His best 1500 m time was 3min 32.4 secs in Oslo, recently). It might seen a strange statement to make about a man who ran 3min 32.5 secs in the Christchurch Commonwealth Games but Walker has matured, and perhaps improved.

The exciting thing is that Bayi appears to run races just fast enough to keep ahead of his rivals and it will be interesting to find out whether Bayi can improve sufficiently to beat the new Walker. Since Peter Snell retired,' the rubber tracks have! sprung up and so the 1 records have tumbled. Not! only are these about one second faster a lap but they have allowed lighter shoes to be used for racing.

I would like to see a race between Snell, Herb Eliott (who did 3min 35.6 secs on a rotten old track), Walker, and Bayi, all running their best. My guess is that you would need the smallest metric measures to separate them.