Anyone know who the youngest sub-4:00 miler in history is? 16 yo Jakob Ingebrigtsen is trying to do it at Pre

Okay, I've done a little more research and as far as I can tell, Ingebrigtsen would be the youngest-ever sub-4:00 miler if he breaks 4:00 on Saturday. According to this website, the age-16 world record is 4:06.7.

http://age-records.125mb.com/

Jakob Ingebrigtsen has some 150 days to try be the youngest to run sub 4 if he doesn't do it before turning 17. Best of luck to him.

Wasn't kejelcha 17 years old when he ran 12:53 for 5000m? There has to be a record of him running a 1500m or mile at 15years old just crushing 4minutes.

Just checked: he has a 2k pr of 4:57 from indoors in 2014, when he was 16years old. Surely that was a sub-4mile en route?

Jonathan, has rojo infected you with the inability to do your own damned research? ffs.

How old was Graham Williamson? He was quite the precocious little bugger.

Cram had the world 17 year old best so he presumably beat Ryun's time and Williamson did even faster times as a teenager but perhaps not as young as Cram.

remember this dude wrote:

Just checked: he has a 2k pr of 4:57 from indoors in 2014, when he was 16years old. Surely that was a sub-4mile en route?

I would assume so maybe someone can find splits

Gotta bee wrote:

remember this dude wrote:

Just checked: he has a 2k pr of 4:57 from indoors in 2014, when he was 16years old. Surely that was a sub-4mile en route?

I would assume so maybe someone can find splits

I found them. He split 3:56.5 at the one mile point.

Big deal. Wake me up when he runs the equivalent of 1:41 800m at age 18 like GOAT Nijel Amos.

"Anyone know who the youngest sub-4:00 miler in history is?"

Jim Ryun went 3:59.0 at the Compton Invitational in Los Angeles on June 5, 1964 at age 17 years 37 days (if I did the math right).

I do not know the answer....but Augustine Choge ran 3:37.48 for 1500m when he was listed as 16 years old.

Yeah, was going to mention Choge.

I think William Kipchirchi ran 3:33 as an 18 year old. Not sure how fast he was at 16.

Same with Eliud Kipchoge...ran roughly a 4 min last mile in a 12:52 5k to beat el g & KB at 18...assuming sub 4 at 16.

All African claims have an asterisk. I discount them.

Gruppy wrote:

All African claims have an asterisk. I discount them.

So how old do you think Kipchoge is?

15y 7m or 5686 days 3:58.50 Tomas Cotter IRL 2015-07-24 1999-12-28

from peter Larsson's list

baconheart wrote:

mile

15y 7m or 5686 days 3:58.50 Tomas Cotter IRL 2015-07-24 1999-12-28

1500

15y 6m or 5671 days 3:37.36 Gideon Kiage Mageka KEN 2009-07-12 1993-12-31

from peter Larsson's list

Seems to be an error. The guy is late 20s now..

baconheart wrote:

baconheart wrote:

mile

15y 7m or 5686 days 3:58.50 Tomas Cotter IRL 2015-07-24 1999-12-28

1500

15y 6m or 5671 days 3:37.36 Gideon Kiage Mageka KEN 2009-07-12 1993-12-31

from peter Larsson's list

Gotta bee wrote:

remember this dude wrote:

Just checked: he has a 2k pr of 4:57 from indoors in 2014, when he was 16years old. Surely that was a sub-4mile en route?

I would assume so maybe someone can find splits

To be a sub-4:00 mile there has to be

(a) an official finish time for a race that was at least one mile long; or, an official split at a distance of one mile or later in the race; and,

(b) that time has to be less than 4:00.

Point (a) means that 1600 meter times or splits do not count. That's less than a mile. It seems unlikely that official mile (as opposed to 1600 meter) splits are available from a 2000-meter race on what was presumably a 200-meter track.

Point (b) means that even if a mile split was taken, if the 4:57 was the result of a 57.0 final 391 meters (about 58.5 for 400 - completely possible) it would not count as a sub-4:00 mile.

I don't think anyone questions that, if you take their ages at face value, the African runners who have set World Youth records from 800 up to 10000 could easily have broken 4:00 for the mile before age 17. If the question is "Who is the youngest person who was capable of running sub-4:00 for a mile?" it would be silly to even put up a picture of Jim Ryun.

That wasn't the question. If you want to offer a different answer to the question that was asked, give a MILE result that is less than 4:00 by someone who was younger than 17 years 37 days old.