TRACK & FIELD |
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Ashley celebrates his Dream Mile in Stellenbosch , with second-placed Maxime Chaumeton also about to realise he has gone sub-four |
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Images : David Papenfus / Endurocad , Trevlyn Palframan & courtesy Eden Street Mile & Under Armour |
In 1954 , British miler Roger Bannister famously broke the four-minute barrier to clock the first ‘ Dream Mile ’ in recorded athletics history . Back then it was considered a superhuman achievement , on par with climbing Everest ( which had been conquered just the year before ), and since then just less than 1500 men have followed in his Sir Roger ’ s sub-four footsteps , covering the 1609-metre distance in anything from 3:59:59 to the World Record of 3:43.13 , run by Moroccan Hicham El Guerrouj in 1999 . While the traditional Imperial mile distance is seldom raced at meets around the world these days , with the 1500m ‘ metric mile ’ being preferred , the sight of athletes lining up for the traditional mile still evokes a sense of great excitement amongst both athletes and spectators alike . Here in South Africa , the first Dream Mile on local soil was run by De Villiers ‘ Div ’ Lamprecht in 1964 , and there was a time in the 1980s and 1990s when the country had a number of athletes capable of regularly posting Dream Miles . However , in the two decades from 2001 to 2020 , just 11 South African men were able to run a sub-four , according to statistician Riël Hauman .
Claiming a 1500m PB on the Coetzenberg track
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So , it is understandable why the sight of two young South African athletes , Ashley Smith and Maxime Chaumeton , racing all the way to the line and both breaking four minutes , after a year of no racing due to the pandemic , elicited so much excitement in athletic circles in March . Ashley took the win in 3:58.63 , with Maxime also getting a Dream Mile in 3:59.01 , and this was one of the highlights of the third meet of the Endurocad Invitational Middle Distance Track Series , organised by Elana Meyer and her Endurocad team , at Coetzenberg Stadium in Stellenbosch – fittingly , the same track where Div ran his first Dream Mile some 57 years earlier .
Relishing the Competition
Ashley ’ s winning time was the fastest mile run in SA for 25 years , but what makes it still more impressive is that he does not specialise in the mile , or even the 1500m , but actually considers himself a specialist 3000m steeple-chaser . He hopes to qualify in that event to go to the Tokyo Olympics later this year , but was nevertheless ecstatic about his sub-four . “ I missed it by just 0.3 seconds in 2018 in the Eden
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Street Mile in Oudtshoorn , and there have been very few opportunities to race the mile again since then . Then Endurocad set up five or six meets in Stellenbosch , with varying distances , and I feel they set it up perfectly , with odd distances in between the main distances , almost like stepping stones . I was able to participate in three of their meets , running a steeplechase , then the mile and a 1500m , and they all went very well !” |
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