Cram predicts unforgettable spectacle as Men’s Mile takes centre stage
Steve Cram has seen most things during his career as a world-class athlete and TV commentator, but still the Glasgow 2026 Men’s One Mile final, scheduled for 20:55 local time on Saturday, has got the 65-year-old beaming in anticipation.
“Anyone who's sitting in the stadium to watch that, and I guess watching at home, but particularly if you're here in the stadium, it's going to be something people will remember for the rest of their lives,” Cram, a three-time Commonwealth Games champion, said on Friday.
“The Commonwealth Games are an incredibly important event, but in some events, in some sports, it genuinely has the best people in the world just because of who they are at a given time, and that's what the Mile has at the moment.”
Scotland's Josh Kerr, proud owner since 18 July of the Mile world record, is the world’s best Cram (pictured) is talking about, along with Kerr's team-mate and 2025 world champion Jake Wightman and young flier Cameron Myers of Australia.
Add in the almost mythical nature of the Mile and it is no wonder Cram is certain the eyes of the sporting globe will be on Saturday's final session in the EDF Scotstoun Stadium.
“If you look at two events in Athletics that resonate around the world, it’s the 100 metres and the Mile,” Cram said.
“When Roger Bannister became the first person to beat the four-minute mile, it elevated it to a place that most sporting events don't get to.
“You had climbing Everest and breaking the four-minute mile at the same time. That history and that tradition has given a benchmark for every runner since.”
Cram is one of a very select bunch to have followed Bannister’s example. The 1500m world champion in 1983, he ran a mile in three minutes, 46.32 seconds - one of three world records he set in the space of 19 glorious summer days in 1985. But even with those experiences to lean on, Cram has to doff his cap to Kerr.
“Those of us that have broken records, we’ve never told people four months before where we were going to do it and when we were going to do it,” Cram said of Kerr’s much-publicised world-record attempt at the Diamond League meet in London in July, which the Scot successfully set in a time of 3:42.66.
“It was a brave thing to say - you are racing the clock and you’re racing the other guys but there was also so many things that could have gone wrong before he even put his foot on the track. Yet it all went perfectly.”
That perfection, completed in front of a sell-out crowd of 60,000 at the London Stadium, combined with Wightman’s pedigree and Myers’ recent form, has again got Cram thinking back to England's Bannister.
“It's very resonant of Roger Bannister,” Cram said. “Because Bannister was in a race to break the four-minute mile with Australian John Landy and as soon as he did it, Landy went and did it a short time afterwards.
"So, the (1954) Commonwealth Games became where the two of them came together, and the ‘Miracle Mile’ (Bannister overtook Landy on the final bend to win gold) followed on from the four-minute mile, and we're kind of going to have that here.”
As for predictions?
“Cam (Myers) is a fearless runner, like Josh. He'll go at the front and make it hard, and then you've Wightman, who’s in great shape and was a (1500m) world champion (in 2022) before Josh (in 2023), don’t forget,” Cram said.
“It’s going to be very, very special.”
