You may have heard about Oregon's Cooper Teare running a new collegiate record in the indoor mile last week in Arkansas. If not I've included an excellent video breaking down the race below. [EDIT... Yes I missed the earlier thread about the record... sorry]
But a funny thing happened on the way to the collegiate indoor mile records set last week by Teare and Cole Hocker. They also set records for the collegiate indoor 1500 meters, running the two best times at that distance too. It turns out that the race organizers were asked to set up official times for the 1500m splits to see if the runners could qualify enroute for the Olympic standard at 3:35. The previous record for indoor 1500m was held by James West at 3:36.93. (West incidentally is an Oregon runner who has one more season of outdoor eligibility.)
Cooper Teare's 1500m split time was 3:35.46 and Cole Hocker's time was 3:35.63, just off the Olympic standard but good enough for the best collegiate times ever indoor. Sadly for Cooper however, his 1500m record lasted only one day. The next day, a New Zealand runner, Sam Tanner, who runs for UDub, ran 3:34.72 coming in third in a rare indoor 1500m race filled with pros. (ex-Ducks Sam Prakel and Johnny Gregorek finished with PRs in the same race). So Tanner had the luxury of having faster runners pacing him and a finish line at 1500 meters.
So just think about it, Cooper Teare and Cole Hocker, enroute to a Mile finish, ~100 meters away, were finishing a 1500 meter run faster than any college athlete had before. Just think what they may be able to do (along with James West) in this year's outdoor 1500 meter events, when they won't have another 100 meters to run!
Impressive list of Oregon runners on these two indoor record lists: