Millrose Games

The Millrose Games are an annual indoor athletics (track & field) meet held each February in New York City. Among the world's most prestigious indoor track meets, the games currently take place at the Fort Washington Avenue Armory in Washington Heights, having done so since 2012. They were previously held at Madison Square Garden from 1914 to 2011.

The games were started when employees of the New York City branch of Wanamaker's department store formed the Millrose Track Club to hold a meet.

Today, the Millrose Games feature elite competitions for athletes at all levels, including youth, club, masters, high school, collegiate, and professional levels.

The featured event is the Wanamaker Mile.

History

The Millrose Games began in 1908 at a local armory the same year when its parent, the Millrose Athletic Association, was formed as a recreational club by the employees of the John Wanamaker Department Store. "Millrose" was the name of the country home of Rodman Wanamaker in Cheltenham, Pennsylvania.

In 1914, after overflowing the armory the year before, the Millrose Games moved to Madison Square Garden, and until 2011 was the oldest continuous sporting event held there. For 10 years beginning in 1916, the Wanamaker 1 ½ Mile race was a highlight of the meet. Run for the last time in 1925, the final edition was won by Paavo Nurmi, the nine-time Olympic gold medalist from Finland. In 1926, the distance was shortened, and the Wanamaker Mile was born. It has often been run at 10 p.m., a carryover from the days beginning in the 1930s when noted sports announcer Ted Husing would broadcast the race live on his 10 p.m. radio show.

The Wanamaker Mile has been won by over 44 different men, including Glenn Cunningham, Kip Keino, Tony Waldrop, Filbert Bayi, Steve Scott, Noureddine Morceli, Bernard Lagat, Marcus O'Sullivan, Ron Delany, and Eamonn Coghlan. Coghlan was known as the “Chairman of the Boards” for his dominance on the old wooden Millrose track and won the mile seven times, a feat surpassed only by Bernard Lagat, who won his eighth Wanamaker Mile in 2010.

Some highlights in Millrose history include Ray Conger's 1929 upset win over Nurmi in the Wanamaker Mile; pole vaulter Cornelius Warmerdam becoming the first person to vault 15 feet (4.6m) indoors, in 1942; John Thomas hitting the first 7-foot (2.1m) high jump, in 1959; Mary Decker’s run to a 1500-meter World Indoor Record to encouragement from the crowd, in 1980; John Uelses becoming the first person to pole vault the height of 16 feet; Carl Lewis in 1984 breaking the World Indoor Record with a jump of 28 feet (8.5m), 10.25inches, a mark that still stands; Eamonn Coghlan notching his then record seventh Wanamaker Mile in 1987; Bernard Lagat breaking Coghlan's record with his eighth Wanamaker Mile triumph in 2010, and Stacy Dragila setting a late-night pole vault world record in 2001.

For 70 of its first 96 years, the role of Millrose meet director was a father-son affair: Fred Schmertz directed the meet in 1934, passing on that position to his son Howard in 1975. In 2003, the title of Meet Director Emeritus was bestowed on the younger Schmertz.

In May 2011 Norbert Sanders, the President of the Millrose Games, announced that, starting January 2012, the games would be moved to the Armory in Washington Heights, at 168th Street, and that a new all-day Saturday schedule would replace the Friday evening format.

The Millrose Games, operated by The Armory Foundation, are also notable for their rigid anti-doping policies. In 2017, Millrose race director Ray Flynn told an ESPN reporter, "We have a mandate that we don't invite any athlete that has had any drug history in their past. We want to keep our meet free of any athlete that really has a violation."

The Millrose Games were first added to the World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold Standard in 2022.

At the 2023 Millrose Games, Dr. Anthony Fauci attended and was honored with The Armory's Presidents Award.

At the 2024 Millrose Games, the President of World Athletics, Sebastian Coe, was given The Armory's Presidents Award.

Editions

Meeting directors

The Millrose Games has had ten meeting directors over its rich history.

World records

Over the course of its history, five world records and three world bests have been set at the Millrose Games.

Meeting records

Men

Women

Notes

External links