The first American who broke the four minute mile was Jim Ryun (3:59.0 - 1964). Before this, it was not since the 30's that an American held the world record (Glenn Cunningham 4:06.8). Jim was born April 29, 1947, in Wichita, Kansas. Jim Ryun was the first high school runner, at the age of 17, to break the four-minute mile (3:59.0). While still a student at East High School in Wichita, Kansas he made the 1964 Tokyo Olympics team, but he became sick and failed to make the finals.

As a high school runner, Ryun broke that record three more times in 1965 (3:58.3 / 3:58.1 / 3:56.8). Finally, on June 27, 1965 as an eighteen year-old high school senior, Jim Ryun ran a 3:55.3 mile to beat Olympic champion Peter Snell!

As a freshman, at the University of Kansas in 1965, Ryun again set the world record for the mile, lowering it to3:51.1. At Kansas, Ryun won five national collegiate titles, four of them indoors, and became the world record holder in the 880 yards, one mile and 1,500 meters. In 1966 he was named sportsman of the year and in 1967 he received the Sullivan Award as the nation's top amateur athlete.

Although ill with mononucleosis during the Mexico 1968 Olympics, he won a silver medal in the 1, 500 meters. He retired in 1969 but then decided to come back in 1972 to again qualified for the U.S. Olympic team. While running in the 1972 Munich Olympics, in a prelim 1,500-meter heat for the qualifying round, in which he only needed to place in the top four, he lost his balance, tangled with another runner, and fell to the ground. He finished ninth and was out of the running. He turned professional in 1973. Jim was inducted into the National Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1980. Ryun says, "I'm happy with my career and everything that was a part of it. It would've been nice to win a gold medal, but that's not the end of the world."

Jim Ryun stated the reason began competing in track, "I ran to get a letter jacket, a girlfriend. I ran because I was cut from the basketball and baseball teams. I ran to be accepted, to be part of a group."

Today the Ryun's have four children. In 1996 he ran for political office, a place in the United States Congress representing the sate of Kansas. He won that race also! However, there are other races that Jim Ryun has entered, in which he has also shown himself a champion.

Perhaps what also made Jim Ryun a champion in the eyes of all Americans was his disability. Jim experienced a hearing loss and equilibrium problems since childhood. He contracted measles when he four years old and lost 50% of his hearing. That hearing loss also affect Ryun's running since he was not able to hear his competitors coming up behind him, he was forced to look back to see what was happening. Today, Ryun wears hearing aids in both ears and spends time in reaching out to those who experience the same and similar disabilities. "I can see it in some of their eyes, the frustration. As a child, I wanted to enter into the classroom discussion. But sometimes, I might hear the question inaccurately and give the wrong answer. After a while, your fellow classmates begin to think you're basically a dummy. When you can't hear, you tend to withdraw." Jim Ryun is known for speaking at schools for the hearing-impaired across the U.S. and is a representative of a hearing-aid firm named Resound.

Jim was raised in a strong Christian home. "Ryun had grown into a young man so bound by duty to meet others' expectations that each sigh of disappointment from the world after each race in which he failed to rebreak the world record had crushed him. ''And then, in May of 1972, I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior, and for the first time in my life I had the feeling that God loved me because of me, not because of my accomplishments. I felt elated. At the Olympic trials I felt so light that I threw up my arms 10 yards before the finish and had to throw them up again! Then I went to Toronto, and on a track that was like asphalt, with the closest runner 18 seconds behind me, I ran a 3:52 mile -- the third-fastest mile ever. A new dimension inside of me was being tapped. For the first time I was relaxed. Everything was right. And then, in the prelim in Munich, I was tripped, and the official (on the appeals committee) who could've reinstated me for the final refused to, and that was it. I had to retire from amateur running then to work and raise my family.'' ² His wife says, ''Now he runs to spread the word of Christ. 'He has found a peace that he never felt when he was breaking world records.''

One day fans were seeking Ryun's autograph. Above his signature, Ryun had written ''Go with God." Underneath it he wrote, ''John 3:3-8" Most runners are known for writing their world-record mile times beneath their names. The fan looked at 3:3-8 and though that it stood for three minutes and three point eight seconds. Knowing that such a time was too fast for anyone who had thus far ran the mile, he thought that it might be Ryun's best time for the 1,500. It was neither. Rather it was a passage from the Gospel According to John in which Jesus declares, ''Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.''¹ Ryun is known for appearing road races all over the country, witnessing to others, and for sharing the account of his coming to Christ as his Savior.