{"id":8957,"date":"2026-01-25T16:01:30","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T03:01:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/?p=8957"},"modified":"2026-01-25T16:01:32","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T03:01:32","slug":"teen-athletics-star-sam-ruthe-smashes-mile-world-record-for-his-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/?p=8957","title":{"rendered":"Teen athletics star Sam Ruthe smashes mile world record for his age"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Running sensation Sam Ruthe has become the fastest 16-year-old to ever run the mile, achieving the feat at the Cooks Classic in Whanganui on Saturday night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tauranga teenager clocked 3m 53.83s to go under the former world record mark held by Australian Cam Myers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ruthe was narrowly beaten to the finish line by two-time Olympian and training partner Sam Tanner, who helped push the youngster on, as he has done in other races on the domestic scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt feels incredible. That was my goal coming into this race. I was trying to beat Tanner as well, but as soon as the gun started, I just wanted to run as fast as possible,\u201d Ruthe told TVNZ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo lead out some of this race was something I felt I just had to do. I\u2019ll hopefully get my time down faster.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tanner, 25, defended his national men\u2019s senior mile title, surging past Ruthe in the home straight to win in 3m 53.36s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Sam
Sam Tanner (left) and Sam Ruthe competing in the Potts Classic 800m at Mitre 10 Park, Hastings. Photo \/ Photosport<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It came a week after Ruthe pipped Tanner in an exciting 800m race at the Potts Classic in Hastings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year the pair finished in a dead heat in the final of the men\u2019s 1500m at the national championships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both will leave for the United States next week, with Ruthe eyeing four indoor mile races on successive weekends, in a campaign he believes will be important for his development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ruthe is now seventh on the list of all-time New Zealand milers, having overtaken the legendary Sir Peter Snell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other notable results, sprinters Tiaan Whelpton and Zoe Hobbs won the respective men\u2019s and women\u2019s 100m titles in sharp \u2013 though wind-assisted \u2013 times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ireland\u2019s Laura Nicholson ran a smart time of 4m 43.75s to win the women\u2019s mile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Running sensation Sam Ruthe has become the fastest 16-year-old to ever run the mile, achieving the feat at the Cooks Classic in Whanganui on Saturday night. The Tauranga teenager clocked 3m 53.83s to go under the former world record mark held by Australian Cam Myers. Ruthe was narrowly beaten to the finish line by two-time<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8960,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[41],"tags":[233,311,230,231,312],"coauthors":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8957","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-athletics","9":"tag-mile-record","10":"tag-sam-ruthe","11":"tag-sam-tanner","12":"tag-whanganui-wanganui"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/sam-ruthe-1.avif","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8957"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8961,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8957\/revisions\/8961"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8957"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=8957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}