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| Wednesday, July 16 |
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| Alan Webb breaks four-minute mile By Rob Bodenburg SchoolSports.com | ||||||
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Nearly a year after Alan Webb began his quest to run a sub four-minute mile, the South Lakes High (Va.) senior finally accomplished the feat on Saturday at the New Balance Games in New York. Webb clocked in with a time of 3:59.86, becoming just the fourth high school runner to ever run a four-minute mile and the first since Marty Liquori did it in 1967. Jim Ryun did five times and Tim Danielson once.
"We didn't tell anyone we were doing this," Webb told The Washington Post. "It was kind of a secret. We didn't want the press, but I think this is kind of a cool story now, being all secret and everything. It's like when no one's looking, 'Hey, there he goes.' If I didn't do it, it would have been okay. It's early in the season and it's a race situation I have never been in in my life." Webb also broke the U.S. high school record in the indoor mile. Thom Hunt of San Diego, Calif., set the previous record of 4:02.7 in 1976. Webb first began his assault on the four-minute mile during last year's outdoor season. It began to look like a possibility when Webb ran a 3:59.9 1,600-meter split in the distance relay at the Penn Relays on April 28, 2000, although that came with a running start and is nine yards short of a mile. The running phenomenon first aimed for the four-minute barrier at the Herbster Classic in North Carolina on May 20, 2000. However, Webb was not pushed by the other runners in the race and finished first with a time of 4:03.33. The quest was then put on hold after sub-par performances at the Virginia state meet -- including a second-place finish in the 800-meter race -- proved Webb was running hurt. But on Saturday in New York, Webb's dream finally became a reality. Interestingly, Webb only finished third in the race, which featured 11 non-high school runners. Kenya's Leonard Mucheru (3:41.11) and America's Matt Holthaus (3:59.74) took first and second, respectively. So, with this milestone under his belt, what's next for Alan Webb? "I don't want to stop at 3:59," Webb said in a post-race press conference. "I want to go faster."
Material from SchoolSports.com.Visit their web site at www.schoolsports.com | |
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