U.S. high school national champion breaks women’s basketball mile world record

Just a week after high schooler Tennessee Tremain of Guelph, Ont., broke the men’s basketball mile world record, Sydney Masciarelli of the U.S., another junior running star, beat the women’s record, running 5:08.57. This has been a hotly-contested event in the past few months, with both the men’s and women’s record falling on multiple occasions since the start of the pandemic. Masciarelli beat the previous record of 5:16.36, which Lauren Johnson (who represented the U.S. in the 1,500m at the 2015 world championships) set just a few weeks ago.  Masciarelli has won three national championships in running, and she’s a star basketball player, too, so it made perfect sense for her to go after a dribbling mile world record. 

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CDBv4a8AJkQ/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Basketball mile 

The basketball mile started to gain popularity after U.S. Olympian Nick Symmonds set the record with a 5:29 back in August 2019. Not long after that, a collegiate runner from the U.S. lowered the record again with a 4:52. In May, University of North Carlonia track coach Dylan Sorensen smashed the record when he ran a 4:37, and earlier in July, Tremain bettered the time once again with an impressive time of 4:33.9. Both Masciarelli and Johnson beat the record Symmonds ran a year ago, and with their times, they each have a spot near the top of the all-time best basketball mile results, with Masciarelli sitting in fourth overall and Johnson in fifth. 

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The ideal combination 

Masciarelli posted her record run on Instagram, and at the start of her video, she said, “I’m combining two of my talents to try and break a world record.” She has won three national championships in cross-country and track and field, and in both 2018 and 2019, she was the Gatorade Player of the Year for girls cross-country. Earlier in 2020 when her basketball season was still running, she passed the 1,000-point mark in her high school career, which has only been achieved by eight other girls in the history of her Connecticut high school, according to Mile Split. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/B9iD5lfgpZb/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Masciarelli averaged 3:11 per kilometre for her run. One of the most impressive aspects of her record is the fact that she only decided to give it a try the day before. On her Instagram post, she wrote that she “Got challenged to this yesterday and thought it would be a fun thing to do during summer training.”  

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In regular running events, Masciarelli has a mile PB of 4:58.62, and her best 1,500m and two-mile run times sit at 4:34.72 and 10:11.99. With her stellar results in both sports, it looks like she’ll have success in whichever route she chooses to pursue.