Sam Ruthe is just 17 but is already striding his way into New Zealand sporting history. MARC HINTON reports
There are many ridiculous things about Kiwi teenage middle-distance running sensation Sam Ruthe. His talent, for starters, and also his age, maturity level, zinging competitiveness, and the trajectory he finds himself on in the true global sport of track and field. But top of the list has to be the resounding fact that this kid is only just scratching the surface of this thing he does so incredibly well.
Ruthe has had quite a last couple of seasons, striding imperiously into, not just Kiwi but global, track and field history with a series of stunning achievements over the middle distances – from the 800 to the 5000 metres. It’s no stretch to put him among the most exciting prospects on the planet, recognised when World Athletics named him, at just 16, their athlete of the month for January.
As well as breaking just about every New Zealand age-grade record for the aforementioned distances, and winning about every school or junior race he’s ever entered (he lost just once in 2025 to a contemporary, and nominated it a “highlight” because of how deeply it resonated), the kid has also ticked off some monumental international achievements.
In the summer of ‘25 – his breakthrough campaign – aged 15, he dead-heated for gold in the national senior 1500m final with two-time Olympian, and Tauranga training mate, Sam Tanner. Just weeks later on a rainy night in Auckland, he became the first 15-year-old to run a sub-4-minute mile, placing him ahead of such prodigies as Norwegian Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Aussie sensation Cam Myers who rewrote the record books in their rise through the same ranks.
Those feats have ticked over into ‘26. In January he defeated Tanner over the 800m at the Potts Classic in Hastings in a sensational 1 minute 45.86 seconds that dipped under the world indoors standard, eclipsed all his own age-grade marks, and, oh, made him the seventh fastest two-lapper in New Zealand history.
Not bad for a kid still just 16 (he turned 17 on April 12), in Year 12 at Tauranga Boys College, and who isn’t an 800 exponent by inclination.
The feats kept coming. At Whanganui’s Cooks Classic, he was pipped at the line by Tanner in the national mile, clocking 3:53.83 to shatter the world under-16 mark (3:55.44) set by Myers in ‘23, and sliced four and a-half seconds off his own PB.
Then, at an indoor meet in Boston just a week after his Cooks run, he produced the finest run of his young career, kicking to victory over the mile in 3:48.88 which broke Sir John Walker’s iconic 44-year-old New Zealand record of 3:49.08, smashed Nick Willis’ national indoor mark of 3:51.06s from 2016, and was the fastest mile ever run, inside or out, by an under-18 athlete. The icing on the cake? It was the 11th fastest indoor mile in history. Finally, he closed out the Kiwi summer with a dominant 6-second victory in Auckland to claim his first outright national senior 1500m title with ridiculous ease.
For a kid seemingly born to run – parents Ben and Jess were both nationally accomplished middle and distance athletes, grandmother Rosemary Wright won 800m Commonwealth Games gold for Scotland in 1970, and grandfather Trevor Wright was an Olympian and renowned marathon exponent – it’s remarkable to think that Sam has actually been competing through his early years with the metaphorical handbrake applied.
Ben and Jess have a family rule that has meant Sam and his equally promising younger sister Daisy have only been able to train and compete seriously once they turned 13.
Even then, coach Craig Kirkwood, who works closely with Ben to plot Sam’s schedule, has notably held his young charge’s training mileage back well shy of the levels, say, Tanner prepares under.
“It’s unfathomable this could be happening,” shrugs Ben. “Three and a half years ago, Sam Tanner came to the Aims Games intermediate school cross country in Tauranga, and met Sam. Now here they are as rivals. It’s a testament to Craig’s coaching, and it’s testament to Tanner,
and how willing and humble he’s been to have this 14-15-16-year-old jump into sessions with him.”
As Kirkwood told The Post: “His training is based on his age. He trains like a 16-year-old, not like a fully professional. He doesn’t train anywhere near as much as Tanner. So it’s incredible he’s running as fast as he is. But it’s also really exciting because of what he’s got left to give.”
Kirkwood told another media outlet the sky is the limit for his young charge. “When he retires, he’ll go down as one of New Zealand’s best ever. In terms of a ceiling … world records, world championships, Olympic titles – who knows?”
As for the young man himself, he told me at the start of this magnificent run: “I don’t really think of myself as a good runner. I just think of myself as slightly worse than the next person I’m trying to beat. I always just need to get a little bit better.”
That he continues to do.
Image photosport: Sam Ruthe nudges training mate and rival Sam Tanner for the national 800m title in Hastings.