At the 2012 Prefontaine Classic,
Olympian Andy Wheating finished last in the Bowerman Mile.
Afterwards, he tweeted how disappointed he was with his effort. He
ran a 3:53 mile.
I tweeted back at him, “Dude, a 3:53
mile is nothing to sneeze at. 50 years ago, you'd get a ticker-tape
parade.” This then made me curious about the world-record
progression in the mile... it certainly felt like 3:53 is about where
it was 50 years ago... and it was (Jim Ryun ran a then-world-record
3:51 in 1968).
While looking through the world-record
progression in the mile on Wikipedia, I noticed something rather
interesting.... take a look through the progression and see if you
spot it yourself.
The part that struck me was the two
Swedes, Aarne Andersson and Gunder Hagg, who traded the world-record
in the mile back and forth in the early 1940's. You may recall there
was a slight global conflict happening around then, yet these two
20-somethings were setting world records. They weren't in the armed
forces, possibly because Sweden was technically neutral... yet, they
were surrounded by the 3rd Reich and many of the upper
eschelon were known to vacation in Sweden.
Intrigued, I tried to find more about
Andersson and Hagg.... and couldn't find much, just their obituaries.
There, I discovered that in their final race, in the spring of 1945,
Hagg claimed he wasn't in shape, and still ran a 4:01.6, and Andersson
somehow got the cartridge from the starters gun lodged in his
spike... and still ran a 4:01.8. The next time somebody lowered the
world-record in the mile was when Roger Bannister ran 3:59.6 in 1954,
nine years later.
Can you imagine? Without a cartridge
in his spikes, Andersson no doubt breaks four minutes. If he had
actually been in (better) shape, Hagg breaks it as well. Instead,
these guys were.... Seconds From History. Now you get it.
Not only that, but the coach of the
Swedish national team in the 30's and 40's was charged with making
the Swedes competitive on a world level (because the Norwegians had
been kicking their ass) and to make that happen, all he did was
invent the system that all distance runners use to improve to this
day... the fartlek. It's where you alternate running faster and
slower while you're running long distances so that by the time you're
done, you're basically sprinting for at least a mile... which is kind
of important when you're trying to set a world record at that
distance.
And finally, the reason Andersson and
Hagg didn't break the four minute mile is because in the spring of
1946, both of them were banned for life by the Amateur Athletic Union
because they accepted money to run.... so neither of them got a
chance to try and break the four minute mile in peacetime, and
neither of them got to run in the 1948 London Olympics.
To me, this seems like a pretty
fascinating story. Seems like Hollywood would eat this up. The
quest for a world record. Nazis. The invention of a way to train
that absolutely every distance runner still uses today. Taking money
when you're not supposed to- and getting busted for it when you know
that every alleged top amateur runner has taken cash at some point.
Did I mention Nazis yet?
Well, not only is there not a Hollywood
movie about these guys, there isn't even a book. Well, not in
English. I'm sure there's one in Sweden. But I haven't been able to
find it. So I'd like to write the book on these guys. There are a
few minor issues.
One, I can't read or write or speak
Swedish. This may make it difficult to read anything about these
guys written at the time. It may make it difficult to read letters
and journals that they wrote that their families no doubt still have
(they both toured the US in 1943.... um, a pleasure cruise across the
Atlantic when U-boats were as plentiful as salmon? No thanks). It
may make it difficult to read absolutely anything from the Swedish
Athletic Association.
So there's that. But that's why people
have assistants. Anyway, I'm going to keep looking around. Maybe I
can't find enough for a book, but you'd think there's enough for an
essay.
(And if you'd like to help. I'll take
all I can get. How about a free trip to Sweden, an assistant, and an
interpreter? That'd be a start.)
All I know is that, these guys were
Seconds From History, and they deserve a better fate than to only be
noticed when an Olympian is pissed that he ran a 3:53 mile.
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