Date December 17, 2016 Event type beer mile Established 2014 | Location Austin, Texas Distance mile Course records 4:47:13 by Lewis Kent | |
The Flotrack Beer Mile World Championship is an annual beer mile competition that takes place in Austin, Texas.
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First held in December 2014, this is the premier beer mile event.
On December 1, 2015 at the second annual World Championship, Canadian Lewis Kent set a new world record with a time of 4:47.17
The third annual World Championship will be held on December 17, 2016.
Race Details
The event annually takes place in Downtown Austin at the Austin American Statesman headquarters. Originally scheduled for Yellow Jacket Stadium in Austin, community leaders grew concerned (it is a high school football stadium), and the venue for the first race was moved to Circuit of the Americas, where a makeshift quarter mile oval on the pit straight was formed to organise the inaugural race. Since the 2015 race, the event has been held in downtown Austin.
The event is broken down into several different fields. The men's and women's elite fields feature some of the top beer milers in the world. There is also a semi-elite field. Both the elite fields and semi-elite fields require qualification times to enter. There are also open fields open to the first 300 entrants.
The event typically draws crowds in the thousands.
The winner of the men's and women's elite fields receives $5,000.
History
The first Beer Mile World Championship took place on December 3rd 2014. Canadian Corey Gallagher took home the crown in the men's elite division with a time of 5:00.2. In the women's field, American Elizabeth Herndon won with a time of 6:17, breaking the former world record by 25 seconds.
The 2015 race featured a loaded field including defending champion Corey Gallagher, Lewis Kent and Jim Finlayson. In an epic race, Kent narrowly edged Gallagher by 2 seconds. Both men broke the previous world record. In the women's field, American Erin O'Mara lowered the women's world record to 6:07.