1500 metres

The 1,500-metre run (approximately 0.932 miles or 4921 feet, 3.1 inches in distance) is the premier middle distance track event.

The demands of the race is similar to that of the 800 metres, but with a slightly higher emphasis on aerobic endurance and a slightly lower sprint speed requirement. The 1500 metre race is predominantly aerobic, but anaerobic conditioning is also required and the 1500 metre athlete needs to balance between endurance training with the ability to offset high amounts of lactic acid.

In modern times, the 1,500-metre run has been run at a pace faster than the average person could run 400 metres. Each lap ran during the world-record race run by Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco in 1998 in Rome, Italy^[1] averaged just under 56 seconds (or under 13.8 seconds every 100 metres). 1,500 metres is three and three-quarter laps around a 400-metre track. During the 1970s and 1980s this race was dominated by British runners, along with an occasional Finn, American, or New Zealander, but through the 1990s a large number of African runners began to take over in being the masters of this race, with runners from Kenya, Morocco, and Algeria winning the Olympic gold medals.

In the Modern Olympic Games, the men's 1,500-metre race has been contested from the beginning, and at every Olympiad since. The first winner, in 1896, was Edwin Flack of Australia, who also won the first gold medal in the 800-metre race. The women's 1,500-metre race was first added to the Summer Olympics in 1972, and the winner of the first gold medal was Lyudmila Bragina of the Soviet Union. During the Olympiads of 1972 through 2008, the women's 1,500-metre race has been won by three Soviets plus one Russian, one Italian, one Romanian, one Briton, one Kenyan, and two Algerians, with the latter two winners being a big step forward for the women of Muslim countries, and for North Africa as a whole.

In American high schools, the one-mile run (which is 1609.344 metres in length) and the 1,600-metre run, also colloquially referred to as "metric mile", are more frequently run than the 1,500-metre run, since imperial units are better-known in America. Which distance is used depends on which state the high school is in, and, for convenience, national rankings are standardized by converting all 1,600-metre run times to their mile run equivalents.

Top ten fastest athletes

Men

• Updated July 2010.

Women

• Updated April 2010.

Best year performance

Men's seasons best (Outdoor)

Women's seasons best (Outdoor)

Other sports

1,500 metres is also an event in swimming and speed skating. The world records for the distance in swimming are 14:10.10 (swum in a 25 metre pool) and 14:34.56 (swum in a 50 metre pool) by Grant Hackett, and 15:32.90 (swum in a 25 metre pool) and 15:42.54 by Kate Ziegler.

The world records for the distance in speed skating are 1:41.04 by Shani Davis and 1:51.79 by Cindy Klassen.^[2]

See also

• World record progression 1500 metres

References

External links

• Statistics