The barrels are changed and the lines are clean ahead of the inaugural Flo Beer Mile World Championships, taking place in America today.
Athletes from all over the globe will descend on Austin, Texas, competing to become the best Beer Mile drinkers that this world has to offer.
The race requires the envied ability amongst men to keep your beer down; this must be done four times, whilst running a mile around a 400m athletics track.
The Beer Mile originated from Canadian university students at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. This is where the rules were established and the longest official records date back to.
The ‘Kingston Rules’ require runners to drink a full 12oz standardised can/bottle of whichever alcoholic beverage one desires before each lap. However, said beverage must be at least 5%ABV and any vomiting will result in a penalty lap.
There is also a science to the event. Beer must be at room temperature and poured into the mouth, as both tactics seem to make it go down quicker.
Male world record holder, and first person ever to have broken the sub-5 minute Beer Mile, is Canada’s James “The Beast” Nielsen, setting the benchmark for his rivals with a stupendous time of 4:57.0 this year. But he will NOT be at the World Championships.
An event that apparently even Lance Armstrong could not complete a lap of is not as easy as it sounds and “The Beast” will certainly have challengers to his record.
Second fastest man Corey Gallagher, also from Canada, will be in attendance though and he doubts the authenticity of Nielsen’s record: “If you’re running 4:57 six months ago then there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be at worlds. I don’t think he’s legit. I don’t think he really ran it.”
Even Olympian Nick Symmonds will be challenging to break the world record. American Symmonds finished fifth in the 800m final in London 2012 and has set breaking the Beer Mile World Record very high on his list of priorities.
It has been a long dream of Symmonds’ as he set the American record back in 2005, but the life of an Olympian has stunted his development.
Symmonds will be the favourite but Gallagher’s fastest time is 18 seconds faster leaving the American 800m champion a hefty gap to plug as they prepare for the big race.
Meanwhile in the women’s category, Seanna Robinson had held the record for an impressive 17 years, with a time of 6:42.0 – that was until a Chris Kimbrough spectacular blew her out of the water.
44-year old mother of six Kimbrough smashed Robinson’s record by a sizeable 14-second gap in November 2014.
Robinson and Kimbrough will go head-to-head in the women’s final along with 11 other competitors, with both finals and the heats taking place today at the Circuit of Americas, home of the American F1 Grand Prix.
