The times-news. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1927-current, 1933-04-11
KANSAN MAY
BREAK RECORD
Cunningham Has Goal of
Mile in 4:l0; Much
in His Favor
By TOM MAHONEY

KANSAS CITY, Mo-. April II.
(UP).-Glenn Cunningham, the
courageous Kansas farmboy dis
lance star, may be the first hu-
man to run mile in exactly l:!O,
a goal of great track men for
more than half century:
In setting a new American rec
ord last year, Cunningham ran
the distance in 4:11.1. There are
many factors in favor of his low
cring the time below Paavo Nur-
mis- mark of 4:10.4 and possibly
as low as the lOng-sOught 4:lD.
With another full college year
before him and possibly several
additional in law school, Cunning
Lam is already 23 and far strong
CT than the average university
distance runner. The schoolhouSe
fire, which burned his legs when
he was eight, also retarded his
education sufficiently to give him
a well-developed heart and lungs
before entering the blaze Of COM
petition. ,.,
Cunningham has been forum.
aic in his coaches. His high school
mentors and Brutus. Hamilton and
then H. E. Hargiss at the Uni
versity of Kansas have all consid-
cred it more important that Cum
ningham be properly handled than
that their teams win champion"
ships. Hargiss tossed away the
Big Six indoor title last winter by
holding the star out Of a race Ia
let him rest for a contest with
Gene Venzke.
Many runners have been hailed
as destined to do a mile in an OIL
fetal 4:1O but only Nurmi has
come within q second of accom-
plishing the feat. The mile record
itself is one of the most infre-
uuently shattered marks. Nurmi,S
word mark is nearly 10 years old;
Some earlier mile records stood
longer than that.
The first modern runner expect
ed to do a 4:10 mile was W. u,
George, the great English runner
As a professional, he ran a IA
NOUS race in 1886 in the brilliant
time of a minutes IL ga seconds
but he never ran faster officially
and his best amateur record, made
four years earlier, was AL 20:
This stood as amateur record
for - years until 1895 when
Tommy Connect of Ireland ran 4
mile in Ais 3-5 at New York
London A. c. meet in New York
City. George B. Tincler, another
Irishman, ran a professional mile
in 1897 in Worcester. Mass, III
4:15 Is but Connects amateur
record stood for Is years until
1913.
John Paul Jones, great Cor
nell distance runner, in that year
set an amateur and intorcOllegi-
ate mile mark Of LA 2-5 at CAM
bridge. Mass. This remained the
record until July 16, 1915 when
Norman Taber of Brown, paced
by five spTinters, ran a mile IN
4:12 2-5 in the Harvard stadium.
Paavo Nurmi lowered the mark
to a neven ALP at an indoor meet
in Buffalo. n. Y, during his tour
of the United States in 1928. Ten
days later, the colorful Joie Ray
of the Illinois A. c., ran in the
same time in New York City.
Nurmi set The present world
mark August %, 1928, in Spc-
cial race at Stockholm, Sweden,
with Edwin Wide, the great Swed-
ish star. Wide matched Nurml
stride for stride and finished at
his shoulder in probably faSteT
time himself than the old record,
Two years ago there were re-
ports that Jules Ladoumeguc OF
France had bettercd this mark
and even had run as fast as
4:09.2 but such records were
never claimed for him and before