The 1500 metres or 1,500-metre run is the foremost middle distance track event in athletics. The distance has been contested at the Summer Olympics since 1896 and the World Championships in Athletics since 1983. It is equivalent to 1.5 kilometers or approximately 15⁄16 miles. The event is closely associated with its slightly longer cousin, the mile run, from which it derives its nickname "the metric mile".[1]
The demands of the race are similar to that of the 800 metre run, but with a slightly higher emphasis on aerobic endurance and a slightly lower sprint speed requirement. The 1500 metre run is predominantly aerobic, but anaerobic conditioning is also required.[2]
Athletes competing in the 2024 men's Olympic final
Each lap run during the men's world-record race of 3:26.00, run by Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco in 1998, averaged just under 55 seconds (or under 13.8 seconds per 100 metres or 2:17.33 minutes per kilometer).[3] Since El Guerrouj, only three other men in history have broken the 3:27 barrier; Bernard Lagat, Asbel Kiprop, and Jakob Ingebrigtsen. El Guerrouj remains the only man to break the 3:27 barrier more than once.[4]
1,500 metres is three and three-quarter laps around a 400-metre track (seven and a half laps around an indoor 200 m track). During the 1970s and 1980s this race was dominated by British runners, along with an occasional Finn, American, or New Zealander. Through the 1990s, many African runners began to win Olympic medals in this race, especially runners from Kenya, Ethiopia, and East Africa, as well as North African runners from Morocco and Algeria. In the mid-2010s and 2020s, European and American runners began to emerge again in the men's event. American Matthew Centrowitz Jr. won the gold medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics. In the 2020 Summer Olympics, Jakob Ingebrigtsen, the youngest of a dynasty of Norwegian middle-distance runners, won Olympic Gold, while Scottish and British runner Jake Wightman won the World Championship title the following year at the head of an all-European podium. Wightman's compatriot Josh Kerr won gold at the world championships the year after. In the 2024 Summer Olympics, Americans and Europeans continued to dominate the podium, with Cole Hocker, Kerr, and Yared Nuguse earning gold, silver, and bronze respectively. Faith Kipyegon of Kenya maintained Africa's grip on the global titles in the female event in the same time period, although here again, Europeans Sifan Hassan and Laura Muir, and Americans such as Jenny Simpson also contended for the podium. Unfortunately for the European and American contenders Australian Jessica Hull lived up to her expectations and took the silver medal, cementing her place as one of the greatest female 1500m runners of all time, especially after running the 5th fastest 1500m ever two weeks earlier in a race where Faith Kipyegon won and broke the world record.
In the Modern Olympic Games, the men's 1,500-metre race has been contested from the beginning, and at every Olympic Games 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 Olympic Games 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. The 2012 Olympic results are still undecided as a result of multiple doping cases. The best women's times for the race were controversially[5] set by Chinese runners, all set in the same race on just two dates four years apart at the Chinese National Games. At least one of those top Chinese athletes has admitted to being part of a doping program.[6] This women's record was finally broken by Genzebe Dibaba of Ethiopia in 2015.
In American high schools, the 1,600-metre run, also colloquially referred to as "metric mile", is the designated official distance by the National Governing Body the NFHS. Because of the legacy, since US customary units are better-known in America, the mile run (which is 1609.344 metres in length) is more frequently run than the 1,500-metre run. For convenience, national rankings are standardized by converting all 1,500-metre run times to their mile run equivalents.[7]
Strategy
Many 1500 metres events, particularly at the championship level, turn into slow, strategic races, with the pace quickening and competitors jockeying for position in the final lap to settle the race in a final sprint. Such is the difficulty of maintaining the pace throughout the duration of the event, most records are set in planned races led by pacemakers or "rabbits" who sacrifice their opportunity to win by leading the early laps at a fast pace before dropping out.
^In the United States, where the mile race remains highly popular, 'metric mile' often refers to a 1600 metre race, an event generally not run outside its borders.
^On 17 August 2015, the Court of Arbitration for Sport says it approved a settlement agreed to by Turkish athlete Aslı Çakır Alptekin and the IAAF. Alptekin has agreed to forfeit her 1500 metres Olympic title and serve an eight-year ban for blood doping.12 On 29 March 2017, Turkish athlete Gamze Bulut was banned for doping and lost her Olympic silver medal. Maryam Yusuf Jamal of Bahrain was advanced to gold, the silver medal was awarded to Tatyana Tomashova of Russia, and the bronze medal was awarded to Abeba Aregawi of Ethiopia. Tomashova was earlier found guilty of doping and missed the 2008 Olympics because of that, and was banned after the Olympics for failing another drug test.3
