Steve Ovett - World Record - 1 Mile Run - 1980

July 1st, 1980. Getting ready for his upcoming Olympic showdown with Sebastian Coe, Steve Ovett takes down Coe's World Record with a 3:48.8 clocking in Oslo, Norway. Coe had set a record of 3:48.95 just under a year earlier - July 13th, 1979 - on the very same track. Finishing second to Ovett in this race was some 19 year old kid named Steve Cram, stopping the clock at 3:53.8.

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• Steve
• Ovett
• Cram
• Sebastian
• Coe
• Mile
• Run
• WR
• world
• record
• Oslo
• Norway
• Athletics
• track
• and
• field

[TheSagittarian4e]

their mile pace would be my 100m pace....MAYBE.

[MrFlash215]

i ran 1 mile in 4 minutes and 5 seconds... and im 13.

[ARRISIPPY]

@eifersucht2 I think a lot of the early European tracks were 500 metres (hence the 1500m being 3 laps) while the US and the old British Empire countries of course used yards. So what we ended up with is a bit of a mix and match mess!

[eifersucht2]

I really do not understand the logic of the 1500 and the 3000. Honestly, why not just make it 1600 and 3200?

Here we have the 100, 200, 400, 800 corresponding to .25, .5, 1 & 2 laps, respectively, then we randomly break the pattern and run 1500 and 3000 corresponding to 3.75 & 7.5 laps??

This is where the metric system takes a dive. we should either have a 500 meter track with 125, 250, 500, 1000, 1500, 3000 races (which would be stupid) or a 400m track with 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200.

[Perucamuchita]

i wonder how the guy at the end feels =P

[nerdswith8guns]

@mhrunner5 I don't know why they call 1500 meters a "metric mile". It's NOT mile. It's 1.5 kilometers. In a race, 1500 meters is significantly shorter than a mile

[ap1234512]

@CoDCaliforniaPro its actually more like 17 to 18 seconds, and thats for the faster guys.

[JoshMcRay]

@CoDCaliforniaPro I think I might understand the confusion. A mile is 1609 meters, a 1600 is just a 1600 race thats only run in the united States, a 1500 is a metric mile.

[CoDCaliforniaPro]

Yeah... I'm in track in highschool as well as cross country, and I'm pretty sure a mile is 1600 meters. So aren't they stopping 100 meters short? Whats that another 12-14 seconds?

[Ignore14]

@zippo7224 he would take 100 meter stride