Olympians and students clash for beer mile glory

The first ever beer mile world championships are set to be held in Austin, Texas, Wednesday night, and the start list is littered with a mismatched list of boozing runners who each seem to fall at different points on the spectrum between the two.

The beer mile, though it comes with set “Kingston” rules, is a fairly simple event. Drink four beers and run for laps, alternating the two. Beer, lap, repeat, repeat, repeat. The race is being hosted by popular track and field website Flotrack.

The event, which was spawned in the early 1980s in Kingston, Ont., has a strong Canadian connection, many of the top runners set to compete being Canucks, including Canadian Running contributor Seanna Robinson, who once held the women’s world record and was an early adopter of the beer mile during her years as a Queen’s University student-athlete in the 1990s.

The race has managed to get some sponsors in Kill Cliff, a sports recovery drink company, and Hops and Grain, a local brewery in Austin. Between the two, the races now each are offering $2,500 to the winners, and have pledged to double to prize for a world record, based on the ranking kept at Beermile.com, a notably unofficial-looking website which has been deemed the official rankings.

The other Canadian woman lining up is Kristy Smith of Vancouver.

Canadians on the men’s side include Corey Gallagher of Winnipeg, the man with the best men’s time competing, Jim Finlayson, a three-time member of Canada’s world cross-country squad during the late-1990s and early-2000s, and Lewis Kent, a student-athlete at Western University in London, Ont.

The men will have their hands full if you look at the race based purely on speed. American 800m Olympian and 2013 world silver medallist Nick Symmonds is set to compete, though the event will take more than just the ability to run four laps. Keeping the beer down is vital, the penalty for not being a game-changing extra lap.

The races are scheduled to start shortly after 7:00 p.m. CST and can be watched live on Flotrack.