Mile Road Race Returns to Queen Street Auckland After An Absence of 30 Years

The Queen Street mile has been resurrected by the John Walker Find Your Field of Dreams and will be staged as the Queen Street Golden Mile to be held on Easter Monday 1st April 2013.

Unlike the earlier street races in 1972, 1982 and 1983, which focussed on elite athletes, next year’s event will also be open to the public. Auckland Council will back the event for three years. Mayor Len Brown who joined Sir John Walker in announcing the event last Wednesday said it was not intended to rival the popular Round the Bays fun run or the adidas Auckland Marathon. Numbers would be capped to 4500 in the first year. The new course means the race record of 3m 28.36s set by Mike Boit of Kenya in 1983 won’t be broken. Next year’s race will start on Mayoral Drive and finish on Queen’s Wharf. The previous races started on Karangahape Road with runners taking a sharp right-hand turn on to the steepest section of Queen Street finishing at the intersection with Customs Street.
Sir John said that any promotion of athletics is got to be good for the sport.
“It gives the kids a chance to compete on the same level as the senior athletes, running the same course and getting a time. If we can get the elite athletes running a sub-four minute mile that will be pretty tremendous,” he said.