There's a growing sentiment within the track & field community to restore the mile (as opposed to the Olympic distance of 1500 meters, which is roughly 100 meters shorter) in high school and college meets. There's even a website bringbackthemile.com, which claims the mile is "America's distance." That contention makes absolutely no sense to me, but more on that later. My whole thesis here is that I'm not one of the people suddenly jumping on this mile bandwagon.
First, a little background. The mile has always had special significance in the track & field world. Everybody's heard of Roger Bannister, and everybody knows that he was the first person to break the four-minute barrier. That achievement is on the shortlist of most significant sporting milestones of the 20th Century, and it's one of the main reasons why I think Roger Bannister should light the Olympic flame two months from now.
The mile used to be contested regularly around the world. That was when tracks were built using the English system of measurement and, thus, every race was run using the English distances (110 yards rather than 100 meters, 220 instead of 200, 440 instead of 400, etc.). But the Olympics were always held on a meter-track, and the Olympic races were held over metric distances. Sometime around the early '70s (when dirt tracks were starting to be replaced by rubberized ones), somebody figured out that it would be a good idea for the race distances to actually be standardized. There were a few holdouts for a little while, but by the late 70s-early 80s, all of the tracks and races were in meters.
In my opinion, this makes complete sense. Why have athletes run a completely different distance from week to week? 110 yards isn't 100 meters just like a mile isn't 1500 meters. They're completely different races that require different training and different strategies. It wouldn't be fair to ask an athlete to keep going back-and-forth between English and metric. (They also measure the jumps in meters.)
Likewise, if the Olympic distance is 1500 meters, and the Olympics are the ultimate goal of any athlete, why would coaches want their athletes to race anything but the international distance? If somebody is good enough to compete overseas, they're going to have to run the 1500 anyway, so why not give them that experience at home? There are also a number of international athletes who come to the U.S. for college. For them, the opposite is true. All they've ever run is 1500 meters. Now you're asking them to run a mile just when they're competing collegiately, then going back to the 1500 whenever they're back in Europe? That's not a fair expectation either.
I get the historical significance of the mile. The featured event at the Millrose Games is the Wanamaker Mile. At the Prefontaine Classic, they run the Bowerman Mile. The Bislett Games is Oslo, one of the most prestigious meets in the world, has the "Dream Mile," which, in its heyday, was run just before midnight so that it could be broadcast live in the U.S. But those meets date back to the days when the mile was contested regularly. That's why they still run it at them.
Now for this whole "The mile is America's distance" thing, which makes absolutely no sense. But America's distance? I beg to differ. Name one great American miler. Exactly. America's distance is, was and always will be the 100 meters. We dominate the sprints. It's only recently that Americans have even become relevant again in the mid-distance events. Jenny Simpson's gold in the 1500 meters at last summer's World Championships was the first for an American woman since 1983, so how can you possibly contend that the mile is "America's distance?"
People know what a four-minute mile is. Saying you run the mile has a lot more cache than saying you run the 1500 meters. But the idea to revive the mile in American high schools and the NCAA is stupid. Track & field is a niche sport in the United States. That's not going to change if high schoolers suddenly go from running 1500 meters to running a mile. Regardless of what event high schoolers are running, Americans are only going to pretend to care about track for a week every four years. That's just the way it is. I don't like it, but I accept it.
The rest of the track & field world runs the 1500. That's all the argument I need to defend my position. You can't win an Olympic gold medal in the mile. Until that changes (which isn't going to be anytime soon), there's absolutely no reason why the status quo should.
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