The coach of Sam Ruthe has praised the acceleration of his charge's rise from exciting prospect to two-time senior national champion.
The 15 year old stunned at the national track and field championships in Dunedin - sharing gold in a dead heat with Olympian Sam Tanner over 1500 metres.
Craig Kirkwood mentors both Ruthe and Tanner - and he joined Piney to discuss the win.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sports Talk podcast with Dancy Waldegrave
from News Talk Zed be.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Incredible scenes at the New Zealand Track and Field Champs
in Dunedin yesterday. Sam Tanner, Sam Ruth, Oli Chignell.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
They enter the home straight.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Here they come Sam Tana.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
He's gunning for five.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Can Sam Ruth bade them?
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Sam?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Sam? Here? It is Sam Tana, Sam Ruth. Oh my goodness.
They've put the photo up on How close this is?
Speaker 1 (00:37):
This is ridiculous. Could we have a dead heat?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
They've both been given the exact same time.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
We're awaiting.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
They call, look at this, three four four three h three.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
It's a dead heat. It's a dead heat.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Ladies and gentlemen, first equal, we have a dead heat.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
But we have a fifteen year old national champion.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Oh my gosh, it's like the two roommates planned it
all along. Unprecedented stuff really. Two time Olympian and four
time New Zealand champion over the distance, Sam Tanner and
fifteen year old prodigy Sam Ruth sharing gold in the
means fifteen hundred meters after a dead heat in the final,
Officials unable to separate the two following a photo finish
(01:22):
both recording exactly the same time down to a one
thousandth of a second. Craig Kirkwood coaches both of these runners,
He joins us, Now, congratulations on your charges finishing one
and two yesterday, Craig. In real time, as you were watching,
who did you think had won?
Speaker 3 (01:42):
To be honest, I had absolutely no Yeah, coming down
the straight and look by Tanner was going to target
and then Sam Ruth hit your deathity roll up on
the shoulder and almost Leandham. So yeah, I had no
idea at the time, And even watching the footage now,
I still can't think it.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
How uncommon is a dead heat in I know it happens.
I think it probably happens more often in the shorter
distances in a fifteen hundred meter race. Have you seen
a dead hate before?
Speaker 3 (02:11):
No? Never, not down to out thousands of a second.
There's some kind of separation there, known, I've never seen
that before my.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Last so presumably yeah. So presumably the ideal scenario for you,
as their coach, was for the two of them to
take the top two places, which they did. As it
turned out, they shed top place. It looked as though
Sam Tanner was looking to burn some of the others
off during the race. Was that the plan?
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Yeah, so we we'd talked pre rate and we'd come
up with a plan for for the first five hundred
just be what it will be and then Sam Tanner
to take the lead and then just increase the tempo
and then try and put everyone under pressure and hopefully
Sam ridd was strong enough to hold on and yeah,
take first and second, and they went one step better
(02:57):
and got two firsts. So yeah, pretty impressive that they
managed to pull off the plan and actually make it better.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
You said before sam Ruth had the audac he h
down the home straight, did you did? What were you
seeing in that last one hundred meters?
Speaker 3 (03:13):
I thought Sam Tanner had done enough to hold him out,
but yeah, just he folded a little bit in the
last twenty and sam Ruth just yeah, just came up
on his shoulder and yeah, just tried to outlean him.
So it was bloody impressive running for a fifteen year
old to have the have the now to be able
to give that, give that a practice. So it's pretty
cool to watch, and he's an extremely talented young man.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
How unusual is it for a fifteen year old to
be doing what Sam Ruth is doing.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
There's only been a couple of athletes of that kind
of age bracket doing what he's doing at the moment.
And so you're talking about Yuka Binger Britson, who's you know,
world renowned and you know, considered the best at the distance,
and a young Australian guy eighteen cam Myers who's done
the similar similar things over the last few years and
(04:04):
he's kind of tracking them the same way they have.
So it's yes, pretty impressive.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
What is most impressive about the way he goes about
his middle distance running, Uh, there's a few things.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
So his training is pretty low key. He's really just
enjoying running with his mates and having to having a
good time and being part of a squad that is,
you know, training really hard. He's got a group of
guys who he trains with and you know they're just
all will good mates and to hang out and they
just love it. So that really impressive. He's got an
amazing racing brain. If you watch him in the race,
(04:38):
he urious duty. He knows exactly what he's doing tactically,
and some of those things you can't teach. It just
it's just intuition and he kind of gets to ride
every time, so you know, and he's also really humble,
like you know, he had the great Sin Sam a
message afterwards after the racing to say, you know, thanks
for the race and it was great being you know,
(04:59):
part of what we did together and just really appreciative
and that that goes a long way.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Indeed it does. Most fifteen year olds are still grown.
If he were to shoot up a few more inches,
would that help him or hinder him?
Speaker 3 (05:12):
We'll see. I guess I don't know. I don't know
the answer to that. Probably help him. Yeah, though, if
you look at the crop of the best fifteen hundred
runs in the world, they are a little bit taller
these days, and holding your space on the track is
very important, and you know, for the bit more physical mass,
you can hold your space a little bit better.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
But I guess you look at a guy like Sam Tanner,
who's not a big guy, is he he seems to
do it.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
He seems to do Okay, Yeah, he's a bit of
an exception to that all. But yeah, I mean most
of them are. Most of them are bigger and taller
and potentially a little bit kind of more physical you know.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
When you're planning his training programs, how careful do you
have to be with his loading, recovery things like that,
given that he is still just fifteen years of age.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Yeah, extremely careful. Would be really easy to get carried
away and chuck him into some training that will I
give to Sam Tanner, but it's yeah, you just got
to keep in mind that he is fifteen and he
is still growing and he's got a lot of time
left in the sport, and we have to be careful
that we nurture that load and just bring him through
(06:16):
carefully in training. What he does in racing is kind
of far exceeds where he is in training, but that's
just what it is.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
So you mentioned yak Ingerbritson before the Norwegian and he's
currently twenty four. Great Britain's Josh Kerr is twenty seven.
American Cole Hawker, who sensatially one Golden Paris last year,
is twenty three years of age. But one of our greats,
Nick Willis, won Bronze at Rio in twenty sixteen when
he was thirty three. So when do middle distance runners
(06:43):
typically find their peak?
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Yeah, probably somewhere in their mid twenty though, would suggest
Mick was probably a little bit of an outlier and
that he had a really long career and was in
the sport for a a very long time. He was
one of the best in the world at twenty years
old as well. So it's yeah, he's got ten ers,
has got a long time left in the sport, that's
for sure.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Given what he's doing now, Could he Sam Ruth feasibly
go to the Commonwealth Games next year at the age
of seventeen. Could he go to the Olympics in twenty
twenty eight while he's still a teenager.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Those are certainly part of the plan. So we'll see
what happens in the next year and a half and
whether he can get himself qualified to the Common Games
and where the Olympic committee seems, you know, decide that
he's ready for that and happy to select him. We'll
just have to wait and see, but hopefully, yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Well it's good to know that it's part of part
of the general plan. I mean, one issue with any athlete,
and I'm sure you've seen this, Craig in any sport
who shows promise at such a young age is not
getting too carried away with their success. You mentioned Sam's
humility before, so you're happy that he's got the ability
to stay grounded through all of this.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Yeah, I think so. He's a very humble kid, and
you know, he's very kind, and he's a ways very
thankful for you know, I think that I'd done for him.
And his parents are very good at keeping him grounded.
You know, they've experienced in the sport and they know
what it takes and what kind of person you need
to be to be successful, so they're helping him on
that June as well.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
And no danger of burnout. I know that's another very
general term, but you know, given the fact that again
he is so young, no danger of him, I don't know,
burning out, losing interest, that sort of thing.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Oh, I mean, I guess there's always that danger, but
I think when you're continually having success like he is,
and you know he's loving what he's doing and enjoying
the group of mates that he's training with, and you
know that it goes beyond just the training. They're kind
of hanging out, hanging out at each other's houses and
you know, they hang out in the weekends and those
kind of things as well, so that the good friend
(08:47):
and there's the whole group of them doing the same
thing and they're just loving it.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Very cool, and you're now looking to see if he
can become the youngest person ever to run a sub
form minute mile. I think actually Inger Britson has that
record currently sixteen years and two hundred old days. When
is that planned?
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Yeah, so on the nineteenth of March in Mount Martin, Auckland,
where going to plan an attempt at SO four so
and Sam Tanno is gracious enough to be pacemaker for
that race, so yeah, So hopefully that that happens and
he can be the first of a fifteen year old
to break four which seems absolutely ludicrous when I say it,
but you know, it's very much on the cards and
(09:25):
it'd be very exciting if he can actually pull it off.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
And just word on Sam Tanner. He's been to the
last two Olympic Games. He's gotten close to Nick Willis's
national fifteen hundred meter record of three twenty nine sixty six.
He's run three thirty one twenty four. That's teen seconds
faster than Sam grost Peter, isn't it. So what do
you predict for Sam Tanner over the next few years?
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Yeah? I think he's still I think he's still got
a lot of rin to bruce. He's had a good
indoor season this year over in the US, where he's
run three fifty one for the mile, and he's come
back and you know, he's been in a pretty heavy
block since he's been back from there, so he wasn't
certainly wasn't peaking for the National champs and he probably
went in pretty tired and maybe that showed and maybe
(10:04):
that's reading. You know, they tied for the win. But yeah,
I think he can definitely run you know, sub three
thirty this summer in Europe and hopefully make the World
Championship final in Tokyo in September. So that's that's kind
of our goal. And I think, you know, he's showing
good signs at that on target.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Good to hear. Exciting times ahead as these two and
I'm sure others as well look to emulate the great
key we middle distance runners of the past. Craig, congrats
on your important to these two, and obviously we're bloody
well for you yesterday, so I appreciate you taking the
time for a tech to us tonight.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
No I, Nora, thank you very much for cool No
thanks for.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Joining us, Craig. Craig Kirkwood their coach of both Sam
Ruth and Sam Tanner. Exciting times for both of them really,
I mean Sam tann is still young ish as well,
but Sam Ruth fifteen.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
For more from sports Talk, listen live to News Talks
the'd be from seven pm weekdays well follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the Sports Talk podcast with Dancy Waldegrave
from News Talk Zed be.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Incredible scenes at the New Zealand Track and Field Champs
in Dunedin yesterday. Sam Tanner, Sam Ruth, Oli Chignell.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
They enter the home straight.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Here they come Sam Tana.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
He's gunning for five.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Can Sam Ruth bade them?
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Sam?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Sam? Here? It is Sam Tana, Sam Ruth. Oh my goodness.
They've put the photo up on How close this is?
Speaker 1 (00:37):
This is ridiculous. Could we have a dead heat?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
They've both been given the exact same time.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
We're awaiting.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
They call, look at this, three four four three h three.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
It's a dead heat. It's a dead heat.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Ladies and gentlemen, first equal, we have a dead heat.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
But we have a fifteen year old national champion.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Oh my gosh, it's like the two roommates planned it
all along. Unprecedented stuff really. Two time Olympian and four
time New Zealand champion over the distance, Sam Tanner and
fifteen year old prodigy Sam Ruth sharing gold in the
means fifteen hundred meters after a dead heat in the final,
Officials unable to separate the two following a photo finish
(01:22):
both recording exactly the same time down to a one
thousandth of a second. Craig Kirkwood coaches both of these runners,
He joins us, Now, congratulations on your charges finishing one
and two yesterday, Craig. In real time, as you were watching,
who did you think had won?
Speaker 3 (01:42):
To be honest, I had absolutely no Yeah, coming down
the straight and look by Tanner was going to target
and then Sam Ruth hit your deathity roll up on
the shoulder and almost Leandham. So yeah, I had no
idea at the time, And even watching the footage now,
I still can't think it.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
How uncommon is a dead heat in I know it happens.
I think it probably happens more often in the shorter
distances in a fifteen hundred meter race. Have you seen
a dead hate before?
Speaker 3 (02:11):
No? Never, not down to out thousands of a second.
There's some kind of separation there, known, I've never seen
that before my.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Last so presumably yeah. So presumably the ideal scenario for you,
as their coach, was for the two of them to
take the top two places, which they did. As it
turned out, they shed top place. It looked as though
Sam Tanner was looking to burn some of the others
off during the race. Was that the plan?
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Yeah, so we we'd talked pre rate and we'd come
up with a plan for for the first five hundred
just be what it will be and then Sam Tanner
to take the lead and then just increase the tempo
and then try and put everyone under pressure and hopefully
Sam ridd was strong enough to hold on and yeah,
take first and second, and they went one step better
(02:57):
and got two firsts. So yeah, pretty impressive that they
managed to pull off the plan and actually make it better.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
You said before sam Ruth had the audac he h
down the home straight, did you did? What were you
seeing in that last one hundred meters?
Speaker 3 (03:13):
I thought Sam Tanner had done enough to hold him out,
but yeah, just he folded a little bit in the
last twenty and sam Ruth just yeah, just came up
on his shoulder and yeah, just tried to outlean him.
So it was bloody impressive running for a fifteen year
old to have the have the now to be able
to give that, give that a practice. So it's pretty
cool to watch, and he's an extremely talented young man.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
How unusual is it for a fifteen year old to
be doing what Sam Ruth is doing.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
There's only been a couple of athletes of that kind
of age bracket doing what he's doing at the moment.
And so you're talking about Yuka Binger Britson, who's you know,
world renowned and you know, considered the best at the distance,
and a young Australian guy eighteen cam Myers who's done
the similar similar things over the last few years and
(04:04):
he's kind of tracking them the same way they have.
So it's yes, pretty impressive.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
What is most impressive about the way he goes about
his middle distance running, Uh, there's a few things.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
So his training is pretty low key. He's really just
enjoying running with his mates and having to having a
good time and being part of a squad that is,
you know, training really hard. He's got a group of
guys who he trains with and you know they're just
all will good mates and to hang out and they
just love it. So that really impressive. He's got an
amazing racing brain. If you watch him in the race,
(04:38):
he urious duty. He knows exactly what he's doing tactically,
and some of those things you can't teach. It just
it's just intuition and he kind of gets to ride
every time, so you know, and he's also really humble,
like you know, he had the great Sin Sam a
message afterwards after the racing to say, you know, thanks
for the race and it was great being you know,
(04:59):
part of what we did together and just really appreciative
and that that goes a long way.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Indeed it does. Most fifteen year olds are still grown.
If he were to shoot up a few more inches,
would that help him or hinder him?
Speaker 3 (05:12):
We'll see. I guess I don't know. I don't know
the answer to that. Probably help him. Yeah, though, if
you look at the crop of the best fifteen hundred
runs in the world, they are a little bit taller
these days, and holding your space on the track is
very important, and you know, for the bit more physical mass,
you can hold your space a little bit better.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
But I guess you look at a guy like Sam Tanner,
who's not a big guy, is he he seems to
do it.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
He seems to do Okay, Yeah, he's a bit of
an exception to that all. But yeah, I mean most
of them are. Most of them are bigger and taller
and potentially a little bit kind of more physical you know.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
When you're planning his training programs, how careful do you
have to be with his loading, recovery things like that,
given that he is still just fifteen years of age.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Yeah, extremely careful. Would be really easy to get carried
away and chuck him into some training that will I
give to Sam Tanner, but it's yeah, you just got
to keep in mind that he is fifteen and he
is still growing and he's got a lot of time
left in the sport, and we have to be careful
that we nurture that load and just bring him through
(06:16):
carefully in training. What he does in racing is kind
of far exceeds where he is in training, but that's
just what it is.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
So you mentioned yak Ingerbritson before the Norwegian and he's
currently twenty four. Great Britain's Josh Kerr is twenty seven.
American Cole Hawker, who sensatially one Golden Paris last year,
is twenty three years of age. But one of our greats,
Nick Willis, won Bronze at Rio in twenty sixteen when
he was thirty three. So when do middle distance runners
(06:43):
typically find their peak?
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Yeah, probably somewhere in their mid twenty though, would suggest
Mick was probably a little bit of an outlier and
that he had a really long career and was in
the sport for a a very long time. He was
one of the best in the world at twenty years
old as well. So it's yeah, he's got ten ers,
has got a long time left in the sport, that's
for sure.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Given what he's doing now, Could he Sam Ruth feasibly
go to the Commonwealth Games next year at the age
of seventeen. Could he go to the Olympics in twenty
twenty eight while he's still a teenager.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Those are certainly part of the plan. So we'll see
what happens in the next year and a half and
whether he can get himself qualified to the Common Games
and where the Olympic committee seems, you know, decide that
he's ready for that and happy to select him. We'll
just have to wait and see, but hopefully, yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Well it's good to know that it's part of part
of the general plan. I mean, one issue with any athlete,
and I'm sure you've seen this, Craig in any sport
who shows promise at such a young age is not
getting too carried away with their success. You mentioned Sam's
humility before, so you're happy that he's got the ability
to stay grounded through all of this.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Yeah, I think so. He's a very humble kid, and
you know, he's very kind, and he's a ways very
thankful for you know, I think that I'd done for him.
And his parents are very good at keeping him grounded.
You know, they've experienced in the sport and they know
what it takes and what kind of person you need
to be to be successful, so they're helping him on
that June as well.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
And no danger of burnout. I know that's another very
general term, but you know, given the fact that again
he is so young, no danger of him, I don't know,
burning out, losing interest, that sort of thing.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Oh, I mean, I guess there's always that danger, but
I think when you're continually having success like he is,
and you know he's loving what he's doing and enjoying
the group of mates that he's training with, and you
know that it goes beyond just the training. They're kind
of hanging out, hanging out at each other's houses and
you know, they hang out in the weekends and those
kind of things as well, so that the good friend
(08:47):
and there's the whole group of them doing the same
thing and they're just loving it.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Very cool, and you're now looking to see if he
can become the youngest person ever to run a sub
form minute mile. I think actually Inger Britson has that
record currently sixteen years and two hundred old days. When
is that planned?
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Yeah, so on the nineteenth of March in Mount Martin, Auckland,
where going to plan an attempt at SO four so
and Sam Tanno is gracious enough to be pacemaker for
that race, so yeah, So hopefully that that happens and
he can be the first of a fifteen year old
to break four which seems absolutely ludicrous when I say it,
but you know, it's very much on the cards and
(09:25):
it'd be very exciting if he can actually pull it off.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
And just word on Sam Tanner. He's been to the
last two Olympic Games. He's gotten close to Nick Willis's
national fifteen hundred meter record of three twenty nine sixty six.
He's run three thirty one twenty four. That's teen seconds
faster than Sam grost Peter, isn't it. So what do
you predict for Sam Tanner over the next few years?
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Yeah? I think he's still I think he's still got
a lot of rin to bruce. He's had a good
indoor season this year over in the US, where he's
run three fifty one for the mile, and he's come
back and you know, he's been in a pretty heavy
block since he's been back from there, so he wasn't
certainly wasn't peaking for the National champs and he probably
went in pretty tired and maybe that showed and maybe
(10:04):
that's reading. You know, they tied for the win. But yeah,
I think he can definitely run you know, sub three
thirty this summer in Europe and hopefully make the World
Championship final in Tokyo in September. So that's that's kind
of our goal. And I think, you know, he's showing
good signs at that on target.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Good to hear. Exciting times ahead as these two and
I'm sure others as well look to emulate the great
key we middle distance runners of the past. Craig, congrats
on your important to these two, and obviously we're bloody
well for you yesterday, so I appreciate you taking the
time for a tech to us tonight.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
No I, Nora, thank you very much for cool No
thanks for.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Joining us, Craig. Craig Kirkwood their coach of both Sam
Ruth and Sam Tanner. Exciting times for both of them really,
I mean Sam tann is still young ish as well,
but Sam Ruth fifteen.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
For more from sports Talk, listen live to News Talks
the'd be from seven pm weekdays well follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio
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