2028 Olympic Games to Contest 1600-Meter Run
By David Greenberg, guest correspondent for LetsRun.com
April 1, 2019
MONACO — Olympic and World Championship competition will replace the 1500-meter run with the 1600 starting with the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, the International Association of Athletics Federations announced Monday. This marks the end of the 1500 after over 100 years of Olympic competition.
Your new world record holder
“It’s just easier,” said Bence Von Augustine, a spokesperson for the IAAF. The Americans have been trying to get us to do this since 1904. No more marking a line 109 meters into the race for no good reason, no more questions about why we have a 3 ¾ lap race. Four laps, start and finish are the same. It’s for the best.”
The IAAF undertook a $50 million study over the last 10 years to determine why they contest the odd distance and could not come up with a good answer.
“We had a few good leads, and pursued them as far as we could, but we got distracted on the LetsRun message boards and lost several years of work,” said Von Augustine.
The new world record holder is Grant Fisher, a high schooler who ran the event at the 2014 Michigan State Championships in 4:00.28. Reached for comment, Fisher said “Hold on, what? Didn’t I run the mile in high school?”
Related