Latest news with #Ruthe
NZ Herald
13-07-2025
- Sport
- NZ Herald
Tauranga's Sam Ruthe breaks two NZ records in LA
Teenage Tauranga middle-distance runner Sam Ruthe is making a habit of rewriting the record books. Ruthe has lowered his own national Under-17 and U18 1500m records and ran his first sub-3m 40s race in the process, Athetics New Zealand reported. The 16-year-old raced in the Sound Running Sunset Tour Men's
1News
13-07-2025
- Sport
- 1News
Kiwi teen athlete Sam Ruthe breaks two more NZ records in the US
Kiwi middle distance runner Sam Ruthe has broken two New Zealand records for the 1500m race with a fifth-place finish at an event in Los Angeles. The 16-year-old lowered his own national under-17 and under-18 1500m records with the performance during the Sound Running Sunset Tour at Occidental College's Jack Kemp Stadium. He came within 0.4 seconds of Sam Tanner's under-19 and under-20 New Zealand records and his time of 3:39.17s marked his first sub 3:40 performance. Competing in the top section of the race, Ruthe remained in contention from the start. "I went out pretty hard," he said. ADVERTISEMENT "With one lap to go the pace lights were right beside me, and I thought I was feeling quite good, but over the last lap it felt like the pace light sped up." Less than half a second separated second through fifth place, with Ben Allen of Empire Elite Track Club taking the win with a strong kick at the finish. Ruthe's performance in Los Angeles concluded a short US racing stint. Just a week earlier, he ran a sub-four-minute mile at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Oregon. He said there was a learning curve when racing against more senior athletes. "They obviously race a bit smarter. Having a field this deep is obviously handy — there won't be as many breaks in the line."
Scoop
13-07-2025
- Sport
- Scoop
Sam Ruthe Breaks Two NZ Records In LA - Runs Sub 3.40 1500m
The kiwi teenage middle-distance phenom, Sam Ruthe, is making a habit of rewriting record books. Ruthe has lowered his own national U17 and U18 1500m records, and run sub 3 minutes and 40 seconds for the first time in the process. Ruthe raced in the Sound Running Sunset Tour 1500m in Los Angeles at Occidental College - Jack Kemp Stadium. Ruthe's time of 3:49.17s to finish in 5th place also came within 0.4s of Sam Tanner's U19 and U20 NZ Records. The now 16-year-old has concluded a short racing stint in the USA, which included a 4 minute mile performance at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Oregon last weekend. 'I went out pretty hard' 'With one lap to go the pace lights were right beside me, and I thought ooh feeling quite good. The last lap it felt like the pace light sped up.' On running against senior men 'they obviously race a bit smarter, having a field this deep is obviously handy, there wont be as many breaks in the line.' Competing in the top section of the men's 1500m, Ruthe was right amongst the race from the gun. 'I went out pretty hard' said Ruthe. 'With one lap to go the pace lights were right beside me, and I thought I was feeling quite good but over the last lap it felt like the pace light sped up.' Aside from a strong kick from Ben Allen of Empire Elite Track Club to take out the race, you could throw a blanket over the second through fifth place finishers, only separated by less than half a second. Ruthe has made a rapid turnaround in his season, flipping from the cross country season in winter to the international track and field circuit in just three weeks. Ruthe finished second at the 2025 New Zealand Secondary Schools Cross Country Championships at Barge, Park in Whanganui to setting national records over the 1500m in Los Angeles. Ruthe finished behind the impressive Caleb Wagener, who since has the world U19 duathlon title in Pontevedra, Spain.
Newsroom
18-05-2025
- Sport
- Newsroom
Sporting talent that runs in the DNA
It runs in the family. Running that is. In Sam Ruthe's whānau, running and winning go back generations. Long before Ruthe became the youngest person in the world to break four minutes in the mile, at the age of 15, back in March, his grandmother, grandfather, mother and father all had athletics successes of their own. Grandmother Rosemary Wright, née Stirling, even won a 1970 Commonwealth Games gold medal in jaw-dropping style (more on that soon). Yet Ruthe isn't the only athlete to come from such notable lineage. The annals of New Zealand athletics contain a surprising number of champion sportswomen – including Sylvia Potts and Sally Mene (née Flynn) – who produced silver-fern wearing descendants. Kiwis Potts and Mene competed at the Commonwealth Games in 1970 along with Rosemary Wright. But despite being born in Timaru, Wright wasn't wearing a black singlet. After spending her early years in the Bay of Plenty, she moved to the United Kingdom at the age of 14 with her English mother and Scottish father, and joined the Wolverhampton Harriers. Her running career took off at pace. At 17, she turned heads at the Scottish championships, winning the 400m and 800m, and was promptly asked to race for Scotland. 'My grandparents were proud Scots and so was my dad, so I accepted,' she told a Herald Scotland reporter years later. Wright declined a subsequent offer of an England singlet. 'I never regretted it. Scotland, with smaller numbers, really looked after you.' Representing Scotland proved advantageous when Edinburgh was selected to host the 1970 Commonwealth Games. Wright and her teammates garnered the loudest cheers at the opening ceremony, marching into Meadowbank Stadium behind the Scottish flag. The 65-strong New Zealand team included Sylvia Potts and Sally Mene, marching behind flagbearer, Les Mills. On the last day of the Games, Wright lined up at the start of the 800m final in her Scotland blue. Potts, in black, was on the start-line too. Mene, meanwhile, was in the infield contesting the javelin. The three champion sportswomen, all competing simultaneously, would one day have Kiwi children who'd become champions, too. As the 800m final unfolded, a passionate partisan crowd were egging Wright on. Rocketing down the backstraight for the final time, Wright and the two runners just ahead of her began to surge ahead of the pack. By the final 100m, the commentator proclaimed: 'These three for the medals'. From third position, Wright valiantly closed in on the leading duo until drawing level with them just ahead of the finish-line. A row of three, it was anyone's race to win, but the electrifying crowd willed Wright on. As the trio crossed the line, Wright nosed slightly ahead. 'It was like the finish of a sprint race, not 800 metres,' the commentator declared. Wright's victory was announced the closest finish of the entire Games, by only three hundredths of a second. The first local sportswoman to win Commonwealth Games track gold, it was more than enough to make her the first lady of Scottish athletics. 'My most vivid memory is from about 150 metres from the finish, and the piercing screaming and yelling of the crowd ringing in my ears,' Wright told The Scotsman when she returned to the scene of her triumph in 2008, as manager of the New Zealand cross country team. Asked by Team Scotland in recent years how she felt when she won, Wright said: 'It's just relief. You think, 'Thank goodness that's over'. And I can remember somebody running onto the track with a great big teddy bear and handing it to me and I was just bewildered…' Bewildered, too, was Sylvia Potts, during the 1500m final two days earlier. While leading the race, she'd toppled over two metres short of the finish-line – just one stride away from certain victory. As she picked herself up and hobbled across the finish line in ninth place, the commentator summed up the collective horror: 'And that must be the unluckiest story in the whole history of athletics.' Sylvia Potts falls at the finish of the 1970 Commonwealth Games 1500m, allowing England's Rita Ridley (centre) to take the gold. Potts finished just out of the medals in the 800m, too, ending up in fifth place. She went on to enjoy improved fortunes though, given the honour of running the Queen's baton into the opening ceremony at the 1974 Commonwealth Games in Christchurch. She coached many young athletes throughout her life. And her son Richard Potts represented New Zealand on the track at the 1990 and 1994 Commonwealth Games. Today, the late Sylvia Potts is remembered at the annual track and field meet in Hawke's Bay, named the Allan and Sylvia Potts Classic. Her teammate – discus and javelin thrower Sally Mene – also went on to have a remarkable family. She and husband Mene Mene – who represented New Zealand in decathlon at the 1974 Games – are the parents of former Silver Ferns captain Bernice Mene. While Potts and Mene are celebrated names in New Zealand sport, few Kiwis know much about Sam Ruthe's grandmother, though the now 77-year-old has lived here since returning to the Bay of Plenty in her thirties with her husband, Trevor Wright, who ran the world's fastest debut marathon in the early 1970s. She's never been forgotten in Scotland, however, proudly remembered as the original sportswoman to win Commonwealth gold. When the Games were held in Edinburgh in 1986, Wright was invited to take part in the opening ceremony. 'I've always been welcomed back, almost as a hero,' she told The Scotsman. She was even awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Glasgow in 2014, deemed to have played an important role in Scotland and the Commonwealth Games. Wright's Commonwealth victory wasn't the first time she'd stepped onto the podium; a member of the British quartet, she'd won gold at the 1969 European championships in the 4 x 400m relay in world record time. She narrowly missed claiming a medal at the 1966 Commonwealth Games in Jamaica, placing fourth in both the 440 yards and 880 yards. At Munich 1972, Wright made the 800m Olympic final – her seventh-place time setting a British record. After her athletic heyday, Wright became a teacher and continued to run for many years, turning to marathons. Her daughter Jess – Sam Ruthe's mum – became a top runner, too, winning the Auckland marathon and representing New Zealand in cross country. Jess is married to yet another champion runner, Ben Ruthe, who has also won the Auckland marathon and competed in cross country for New Zealand. It's clear that Ruthe was born into a family where running is a way of life. With so much running success in the family, the teen's extraordinary achievements make more sense, yet are still hard to fathom. Especially considering he has surpassed the earlier record of double Olympic champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen in becoming the youngest ever sub-four-minute miler. If Ruthe's future is as blinding as his form suggests, his grandmother will be well-equipped to mentor him through the heady experience of running and winning on the world stage.
CNN
29-03-2025
- Sport
- CNN
Aged 15, New Zealander Sam Ruthe has already run a four-minute mile. He would ‘love to try and qualify' for the 2028 Olympics
Sam Ruthe had the eyes of thousands on him when he stepped onto a running track in Auckland just over a week ago. Undaunted by the occasion, Ruthe went on to become the first 15-year-old to run a sub-four-minute mile, even managing a nonchalant shrug of the shoulders as he crossed the finish line. The race was almost entirely engineered for the high school student to break the fabled four-minute barrier – a feat first achieved by Roger Bannister more than 70 years ago – but the weight of running history was a burden that Ruthe seemed to bear lightly. The first three laps, he later said in a video documenting the race, 'felt pretty comfortable – nothing too crazy.' Perhaps the most intimidating part of his achievement occurred when Ruthe returned to school the next day, only to be immediately called into the principal's office. 'He's like, 'Alright, so you're gonna have to go up on stage and we'll get the whole school to clap you,'' Ruthe tells CNN Sports' Patrick Snell. 'It was really scary, actually. I headed into class and everyone thought I was famous.' It's easy to forget, given his history-making performance last week, that Ruthe is like most other 15-year-olds in New Zealand. He goes to school, spends time with his friends, and helps with chores around the house. He also just happens to be one of the most exciting middle-distance runners on the planet, one of the latest star athletes to emerge from sports-mad New Zealand. 'Every morning I come downstairs and he's already done the dishwasher, he's already packed his lunch, and he's ready to go,' Ruthe's father, Ben, tells CNN Sports. 'He's just a disciplined kid. He goes to bed early, he looks after himself, he eats well, he looks after his sister. He's just a good kid around the house in all ways, really. We're very lucky.' Ruthe is next due to compete in the 1,500 meters at the Maurie Plant Meet in Melbourne on Saturday, and one target time to aim for will be his dad's fastest time of 3:41.22 – three hundredths of a second faster than Ruthe's current personal best. But he still has a way to go before he can call himself the most decorated runner in his family. Dad Ben and mom Jess are both former national champions who represented New Zealand on the world stage, while his maternal grandparents won European championship medals for Great Britain. His grandmother, Rosemary Stirling, arguably had the most impressive achievement: an 800m Commonwealth Games title from 1970. Despite his family pedigree, Ruthe was never under any pressure to take running seriously. His parents, in fact, didn't allow him or his sister Daisy to train at all until they were 13, never wanting their identities to be tied solely to running. 'It feels like it's the right decision about now,' says Ben. But as he gradually starts to realize his potential, Ruthe, when pushed, admits to having big goals in the sport. 'If I had to pick one thing, definitely Olympic gold,' he says. 'I feel like that's most runners' dream and the biggest thing you can actually win. So that'll definitely be the top of my bucket list.' The 2032 Olympics in Brisbane, Ruthe adds, would be a nice target. And as for the Los Angeles Games in three years' time? 'I'd actually love to try and qualify for LA 28,' he says. 'I feel like that'll be a tough goal. But if I do that, I'll be really happy.' Already, Ruthe's name is being mentioned in the same breath as Norway's Jakob Ingebrigtsen, the most successful middle-distance of this generation. It was his record as the youngest-ever four-minute miler that Ruthe took last week, and the New Zealander also beat Ingebrigtsen's 1,500m record for a 15-year-old earlier this year. Ingebrigtsen's success, Ruthe says, has given him hope that he too can 'have a good future' in the sport. But his biggest source of motivation comes not from the two-time Olympic champion, but from those closest to him – his training group led by coach Craig Kirkwood and athlete Sam Tanner. The pair were instrumental in Ruthe's recent mile time of 3:58.35, and it was five-time national champion Tanner who paced him perfectly around four laps of the track on his way to the record. To show his gratitude, Ruthe is auctioning off the shoes he wore for the four-minute mile to raise funds for Kirkwood, Tanner and their youth development group, with the highest bid currently standing at NZ$10,000 (just over $5,700). For his father, it's a source of huge pride that Ruthe is unwilling to forget those who have helped him on his journey – something demonstrated by a readiness to part with the record-setting running shoes. 'To see my son be able to give away probably his most valuable possession in the world to help those around him?' says Ben. 'It means a lot to me.'
