In 1967 in Bakersfield, Ryun turned in what might have been the best mile ever. Top runners will take a shot at the current record this weekend in Eugene.
Jim Ryun, then a 19-year-old freshman at Kansas University, hits the tape to establish a new world record in the 1-mile run with a time of 3 minutes, 51.3 seconds at the All-American track meet on July 17, 1966 in Berkeley. At 30, Jim Grelle was an outlier in a sport that did not foster longevity, still among the world’s best distance runners eight years after he captured the 1959 NCAA title as an Oregon senior.
The gap between Jim Ryun, the 20-year-old University of Kansas sophomore, and the rest of the human race was never as pronounced as it was on the evening of June 23, 1967. If Ryun wasn’t from another planet he certainly seemed to be from another century. The Bakersfield race tightened his grip on global track and field’s most storied and revered record, a hold that would last nearly a decade, an unprecedented reign in the 20th Century.
The Ingebrigtsen-Kerr showdown has also served as a reminder of an era when track and field was a major American sport, more popular than the NBA or NHL, and Ryun was its first transcendent superstar since Jesse Owens, when the world’s finest milers, the Bannisters and Elliotts and Snells chased world records at Philadelphia’s Franklin Field and on tracks up and down the West Coast, when the sport sold out Madison Square Garden and the Cow Palace drew tens of thousands at the Coliseum, when the...
As a sophomore, he turned out for cross country and was discovered and encouraged by East High coach Bob Timmons, who had served in the Marines in World War II and won seven state swimming titles before turning to track. He coached Archie San Romani, Jr. to the national high school mile record only a couple of years before Ryun caught his attention.
“Coach Timmons was a gift from God to me,” Ryun said. “I was one of those kids who couldn’t make a team and in two years I was under 4 minutes .” “That was when I knew for the first time I would someday have the world record,” he told reporters afterward. Oregon half-miler Wade Bell had been training in Alamosa, Colorado that summer as part of a high altitude training project conducted by Dr. Jack Daniels, the renowned sports physiologist, and designed to prepare U.S. athletes for the 1968 Olympic Games and host Mexico City’s 7,439-foot elevation.
Bell pounced on the second second lap, passing the half-mile in 1:55.4, and continuing to lead onto the backstretch of the third lap. “Well, later came on a blind date and we’ve been happily married for over 50 years. So to me, that was another highlight of that Berkeley race.” “A talent second only to Ryun’s,” Kenny Moore, a two-time Olympian in the marathon, long time senior writer at Sports Illustrated and Bowerman biographer,” later wrote of Divine. Indeed a few weeks earlier Divine finished second to Ryun at the NCAA Championships.“He was unbeatable at his peak,” Wilborn said. “I don’t care if all the best people were in the race. If it started out slow he would beat them. If it started out fast he would beat them.
“I didn’t really feel anything until after the race,” Ryun said. “That’s why I was very surprised at the time. I went by the three-quarter mark in 2:58 which then was a good pace and then I relaxed a little more and ran even faster. I think it was 53 seconds on the last 440. If I had known I was that close to the world record I would have tried to accelerate a little more.
Von Ruden was fourth in 3:56.9 followed by Divine in 3:57.2. It was a personal best for Divine yet still a disappointment. Webb’s run also renewed a larger debate on what Ryun’s Bakersfield record and his other top performances would translate to in 21st century conditions.“That was the greatest mile ever run,” Liquori said repeating himself. “And I’ll give you some reasons. A minor reason, he ran 4:07 the night before .
“If I had a little more expectation perhaps I would have pushed the pace and I would have under 3:50.” Two weeks later on July 8, Ryun and his fellow competitors followed a red carpet down the Coliseum’s stairs, every few steps musicians playing fanfare trumpets announcing their arrival at the U.S. vs. British Commonwealth meet. With the temperature hitting 85 degrees the conditions were far from ideal.Despite the heat, Ryun shattered the world record for 1,500 meters, running 3:33.1, knocking 2.5 seconds off the seven-year-old standard held by Australia’s Herb Elliott.
Ryun came down with mononucleosis in the months leading up to the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. An asthma attack forced him to stop during the 800 meter final at Olympic trials at the high altitude of Echo Summit near South Lake Tahoe. He won the trials 1,500, with Liquori and Von Ruden joining him on the U.S. team, but he headed to Mexico City no longer seen as invincible.
Keino and the Kenyan coaches had similar suspicions. In the Olympic final Ben Jipcho, Keino’s Kenya teammate, set a suicidal pace from the opening gun, covering the opening 400 in 55.98. Von Ruden was ninth in 3:49.2, Jipcho faded to 10th at 3:51.2. Liquori was never a factor finishing 12th in 4:18.2.
“I was trying to get ready for Mexico City,” Ryun said. “That meant altitude preparation. I had worked with Dr. Daniels and some of the other athletes, Conrad Nightingale, George Young, trying what we could for Mexico City. But we realized after the fact, after Mexico City, that really the guy that lived at altitude had such a huge advantage. No matter how hard we worked we would adjust some but we would never get to the point where it was equal footing.
“Well, Bowerman found out about it and brought an end to it. He said, ‘Steve you can’t do that anymore. You need to break off that training regimen.’”“When you have the intention to help each other to a new height in training it’s the right attitude,” he said. “It’s the right thing.” Many of those who chased Ryun in Berkeley and Bakersfield would have their own Olympic disappointments.
He has been the clerk of the course for Hayward Field meets for decades. Saturday he will direct Ingebrigtsen and Kerr & Co. to the starting line. Liquori entered 1972 as the clear Olympic favorite. But like Divine, injury prevented him from competing in Munich. He would attend the Games as a reporter, hired by ABC at the urging of Howard Cosell. For the next four decades Liquori would be one of track’s most recognizable and authoritative broadcast voices.
“But after running it, I realized this is the race I should run in the Olympics next year because I might beat Walker and I might beat Bayi but I’m not going to beat both of them at the same time.” My childhood hero,” Matthew Centrowitz said of Ryun. “A guy I always looked up to. The “Jim Ryun Story” is probably one of the few books I finished from start to finish.”.On the afternoon of August 20, 2016, the younger Centrowitz checked his email after waking up from his pre-race nap.
“We still talk about the way in which he won that race,” Anne Ryun said. “It was like God parting the Red Sea. In this case, God parted Matt’s opponents and Matt went running through to the finish line. God is so good.”
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