History was written at the HOKA Festival of Miles tonight! An all-time Junior record for the mile was set by Connor Burns, taking down Jim Ryan's 58 year old record!
I don’t dispute Ryun was a beast, which factors into why his mile record (for a 17yr-old Junior) stood for 58 years.
There seems to be a nonchalant response to Burns’ run yesterday. Part of that may be that folks think now, more 17 yr-olds are going to come along and run that time. We’ll see.
The nonchalent response is because Connor Burns dad, Marc Burns, used to be the head coach at Mizzou for a number of years. Mizzou has had very little success in distance running, not a great sign for Connor, and he has been training with his dad his whole life. He isn't some kid who picked up running his freshman year and is just suddenly really good.
You realize one of the best american female distance runners who represented the USA at the olympics last summer and will be on this summer's world team went to Mizzou, right?
But Burns’ progression this year has taken a big leap coinciding with physical maturation. That was an all-time great performance for a 17yr-old yesterday. Can he continue the progression, to one day be at the level of Jakob?
History was written at the HOKA Festival of Miles tonight! An all-time Junior record for the mile was set by Connor Burns, taking down Jim Ryan's 58 year old record!
BTW, so how old is Burns, anyway?
Jim Ryun was a fraud. Half of the cinder tracks he ran on weren't maintained properly so lane 1 was actually only 395 meters. Can't trust people just marking lines in the dirt to keep records. Come on.