Spar Mile Challenge

The Record Breakers

In May 1975 Eamonn Coghlan invited his father, Bill, to visit him at Villanova. That happened to coincide with a mile race in Pittsburgh and Coghlan figured the perfect way to impress his father was to run under four minutes. He'd run a 1,600-metre relay split well under that time a few weeks before and knew he was ready.

"Then we had this fight," says Coghlan, "a meaningless tiff over nothing. And I decided to disappear and forget about my father and this mile. Luckily, we sorted that out in time to go to Pittsburgh, and I ended up winning in 3:56.2. And it didn't hurt at all.

"Because of that, I was invited down to Kingston in Jamaica the following weekend, where Filbert Bayi of Tanzania was going for the world record, which he got by running 3:51.0. I managed to get third in 3:53.3, which I only discovered that night in the bar was a European record.

"And that one did hurt. It was one of the few times I felt my legs totally buckling under me in the last 100 metres."

Within a single week Coghlan had joined the elite milers of the world, but it was another eight years before he achieved his greatest goal - the 3:49.78 world indoor mile record on February 27th, 1983. That he did it indoors was to him only fitting.

He often recalls the time they first built the old 200-metre wooden track behind the football field at Villanova. One evening he sneaked in before it was finished and developed a rhythm that was to come so naturally throughout his career.

"I just loved the feeling of the indoor track, the tight bends and the close space. I felt like a little racing car going around. And put that somewhere like Madison Square Garden where you also get the crowd and to me it was just like putting on a show.

"It's true that outdoors I wouldn't have got that same sort of buzz. It just felt so much more open. As a result, I probably did put more of a focus on indoor running."

Coghlan traveled to the Meadowlands Arena in New Jersey that Sunday night in 1983 with only one thing on his mind. The passing of his old coaches Jumbo Elliott and Gerry Farnan and his father Bill in the period before had provided the final motivation. He was going to be the first man under 3:50 indoors.

"Then the original meeting was cancelled because of a snow storm. Normally, the US championships on the last Friday of February was the last meeting of the season, but the organiser agreed to stage the Meadowlands meeting that Sunday if I was so sure of running sub-3:50. It went out live on TV between the featured NBA game, but I had all my splits worked out and I knew I would do it. It took an effort of course to win that race, but it wasn't like I'd broken any pain barrier."

As it turned out, the man chasing Coghlan to the line that day was Ray Flynn, who the summer before in Oslo had improved the Irish outdoor record to 3:49.77. A native of Longford, Flynn joined the four-minute-mile club at the Penn Relays on the last day of April 1977.

"I have very vivid memories of that day," says Flynn, "partly because I'd got some kind of food poisoning the day before, and I was quite sick going into that race. I know I'd taken Epsom salts the night before and I didn't think I'd even be able to get to the start line. As it turned out, it was won in 3:54 or something and I was disappointed not to run a little faster. Of course, it was a big thrill to break four minutes for the first time, but it did come fairly easy."

Flynn had aspired to being a world-class miler long before, having won both the Irish and English schools mile before he took the US scholarship route to Tennessee. He looks back now on the summer of 1982 and knows he was part of the golden era for milers.

"One of the main reasons I ran so fast was from racing so much at that level. And that's what it's all about. The more races you get at that level the faster you start believing you can go. And I always thought secretly that I was going to break 3:50 that day."

Just two weeks before the 3:49 he'd run 3:50.54, also in Oslo. That night of July 7th he took the lead at the bell, and was passed by Steve Scott with 300 metres to go. At the finish Scott marginally missed the world record, running 3:47.69. It went down as Scott's greatest missed chance of real glory.

John Walker set a New Zealand record of 3:49.08 in second, and in third Flynn improved his own Irish record to 3:49.77.

"Now that was hard, and I was quite ill afterwards. I recall sitting on the side of the track for 10 or 15 minutes and not being too coherent. But I never once thought the record would last that long, and it's still a surprise to me that it still stands.

"Especially with the rate of good runners Ireland was producing at the time. These days we're not producing the same kind of runners, mostly because of lifestyle changes, so who knows how much longer it will last?

"And when I was second to Coghlan in that indoor race a year later, I was the only one listening so closely to his time, even though indoors and outdoors are so different. The fact that my time was still that 100th of a second faster meant a lot to me."

In the three years of 1981-1983, Flynn ran in total 44 four-minute miles. By the indoor season of 1990 he'd run 89, but then injuries finally got the better of him. So the honour of becoming the first Irishman to run 100 four-minute miles - and one of only three men in history - fell to Marcus O'Sullivan.

First, he had to break through the barrier - achieved on January 22nd, 1983, down in Chapel Hill, North Carolina - on one of the slowest indoor tracks in America.

"What I remember most about that race was being totally thrilled with the time, and then throwing up soon afterwards. But to me it meant an awful lot. I'd grown up with the four-minute mile still holding so much magic so to actually do it was a big deal."

Now head coach at his old alma mater of Villanova, O'Sullivan was soon running four-minute miles like clockwork. But, by 1994, he found his old motivation waning and he considered retirement.

"I mentioned this to Kim McDonald and he said I was mad. First of all because I was making too much money. Just then people were making a big deal about Steve Scott and John Walker achieving 100 four-minute miles. There were still legends to me, athletes I still look up to, and the chance to equal something only they'd achieved really inspired me."

With a more diligent approach to his training, O'Sullivan racked up 24 four-minute miles between 1995 and 1997, and set himself up perfectly for the glorious crowning of his 100th four-minute mile at Madison Square Garden in February 1998.

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