The Wanamaker Mile is an event held annually at the Millrose Games

Millrose Games

The Millrose Games is an annual indoor athletics meet held on the first Friday in February in New York City. They will be held at the Armory in Washington Heights in 2012, after having taken place in Madison Square Garden from 1914 to 2011...

 in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

's Madison Square Garden

Madison Square Garden

Madison Square Garden, often abbreviated as MSG and known colloquially as The Garden, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the New York City borough of Manhattan and located at 8th Avenue, between 31st and 33rd Streets, situated on top of Pennsylvania Station.Opened on February 11, 1968, it is the...

.

The event is an indoor one-mile race. It was first held in 1908, and in 1926 became known as the "Wanamaker." It is named in honor of the head of the Wanamaker's

Wanamaker's

Wanamaker's department store was the first department store in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and one of the first department stores in the United States. At its zenith in the early 20th century, there were two major Wanamaker department stores, one in Philadelphia and one in New York City at Broadway...

 Department Store in New York City, Rodman Wanamaker.
The race is held every year at 10:00 p.m. This is a tradition started by the legendary sports announcer Ted Husing

Ted Husing

Edward Britt Husing was an American sportscaster and was among the first to lay the groundwork for the structure and pace of modern sports reporting on television and radio.-Early life and career:...

. Husing would broadcast the race live during the nightly news. In 2002, the mile was moved to 9 p.m. to accommodate television coverage.

The race is also a tradition for Irish

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 runners. Past Irish winners include Ronnie Delaney (1956-1959), Eamonn Coghlan

Eamonn Coghlan

Eamonn Christopher Coghlan is an Irish Senator and former athlete, who specialised in middle distance track events and the 5000 metres...

 (1977, '79-'81, '83, '85 and '87), Marcus O'Sullivan

Marcus O'Sullivan

Marcus O'Sullivan is a retired Irish middle distance runner. Although he wasn't planning to go to any of Ireland's universities, O'Sullivan's running encouraged him to go to Villanova University at 19...

 (1986, '88-'90, 1992 and 1996) and Niall Bruton

Niall Bruton

Niall Bruton is a former Irish runner who specialized in the 1500 metres, retiring around 2000.Bruton ran collegiately in the US for the University of Arkansas where he won the mile at the NCAA Indoor Championships in 1992 and 1993...

 (1994).

It was at the Millrose Games where Coghlan earned the nickname, "Chairman of the Boards" (because the surface of the track was made of wooden boards). In addition O'Sullivan has run 11 sub-four-minute mile

Four-minute mile

In the sport of athletics, the four-minute mile is the act of completing the mile run in less than four minutes. It was first achieved in 1954 by Roger Bannister in 3:59.4. The 'four minute barrier' has since been broken by many male athletes, and is now the standard of all male professional...

s in the Wanamaker.

In 2010, Bernard Lagat

Bernard Lagat

Bernard Kipchirchir Lagat is an American middle and long distance champion athlete.Lagat was born in Kapsabet, Kenya...

surpassed Eamonn Coghlan's record of seven Wanamaker Mile victories with a record eighth victory.