Source: Radio New Zealand
Sam Tanner and Sam Ruthe, 800m, Potts Classic, Mitre 10 Park, Hastings. Kerry Marshall/Photosport
Sam Ruthe has set the world alight with his speed but he’s far from the only Kiwi track and field athlete making waves right now
When RNZ sports reporter Grant Chapman was a budding athlete in the 1970s he went along to international athletics meets to score autographs from the world champions visiting the country. They were there to compete with the likes of middle distance star Sir John Walker.
But for decades since those heady days of track medals on the world stage, athletics has more or less been in hibernation when it comes to profile.
“Nick Willis probably bridged that gap, won a couple of Olympic medals in the 1500 metres,” says Chapman. “He was a world class performer for us in middle distance running, but there has probably been a gap between say the 90s and now in athletics where it’s kind of slid back – it’s lost a lot of ground.
“I think a lot of other sports have come through in that time. One of them … was basketball which has emerged as a so-called ‘sleeping giant’ and is now probably one of our top five or six sports in the country. I think the sporting landscape in New Zealand has become way more diverse than it was in the 90s.
“The really cool thing about athletics in New Zealand at the moment is, I think Sam Ruthe and his emergence over the last couple of years has really captured the public imagination.
“I think that’s got a lot to do with the fact that New Zealand has a big tradition in middle distance running. You go back to Jack Lovelock, Peter Snell, Murray Halberg, John Walker, Rod Dixon, Dick Quax.”
Sam Ruthe, for anyone living in a box, is the 16-year-old who’s rewritten the history books, now holding every New Zealand under-20 title from the 800m to the 5000m.
A month ago he shattered the record for the mile set by Sir John Walker in 1982, 44 years ago.
He’s stunned the world – but he’s not the only champion we can expect to see hogging the limelight in July at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. (Presuming he’s going – the team hasn’t been named yet.)
Today on The Detail, Chapman talks about the athletics renaissance.
It’s gone from being a sport that only really surfaced at the Olympics or Commonwealth Games, to selling out an Auckland stadium over the weekend in an event branded “Track Stars”, where the national championships were hyped and packaged for TV, and broadcast live.
That follows hard on the heels of a good haul for athletics at the Halberg Awards, where high jumper Hamish Kerr took out the Supreme Award.
Chapman says when he was interviewing Kerr recently he told him about a meet in Christchurch where there were some good athletes, but they weren’t world-class athletes.
“He said they were leaving the venue and all these kids started swarming them for autographs and they were completely like, ‘what’s going on here? Why do you want my autograph?’
“And Hamish is trying to tell them, you are inspiring these kids. And that’s the kind of interaction that has been maybe missing over the years, and the more opportunities you can create for that to happen can only be good for the sport.”
Making sure athletes can see a pathway to the top is important, says Chapman, and now they have role models to look up to. That was more difficult for the likes of high jumper Kerr, in a sport where New Zealand didn’t have a record.
Now an Olympic gold medallist, Kerr had to be convinced that he could create the pathway for others.
“Which he’s done – and hopefully now we will have kids seeing that it’s possible, and following him down that pathway.”
Parents and family are also important, and it helps if athletes have people around them who’ve succeeded in the past – Ruthe is a classic example of a family with a pedigree.
“Again going back to that ‘see it and be it’ saying, I mean he’s lived it – his whole family has lived it,” he says.
But Chapman does have a concern about Ruthe’s trajectory.
“He’s achieved so much at such a young age, and suddenly now there’s this bandwagon that everyone is jumping on. That has got to affect you as a person, as a kid. He seems like a great kid … but I worry about how having this much attention on him will affect him.”
And Chapman says, just quietly, Sam’s younger sister Daisy, who is also performing above her age and showing a lot of promise, could be the best in the family.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
