This past Saturday in Lisbon, Portugal, the Beer Mile World Classic took over the track for its 11th edition—and Canada’s very own Corey Bellemore absolutely stole the spotlight. Bellemore, who’s made a habit of dominating one of running’s weirdest and most entertaining events, smashed his own world record with a lightning-fast 4:27. That’s his fastest official time ever, and it marks his seventh world title. Not bad for a day’s work, right?
If you’re new to the beer mile, the rules are: runners have to chug a beer before each lap of a mile (so four beers total) and run as fast as they can. The catch? Each beer has to be at least 355 mL, five per cent alcohol, and yep, you have to finish every last drop—no cheating with foam or spills.
Bellemore, who hails from Windsor, Ontario, ran a clean, flawless race this year in Lisbon. He’s been right on the edge of breaking the 4:27 barrier for years, and this time he finally did it. He first set the world record back in 2016 and has been chipping away at it ever since. There have been some wild moments along the way—like in 2018, when he clocked an insane 4:24 but got disqualified for too much foam, or in 2023, when he ran a 4:30 with only one shoe.
The beer mile is actually a Canadian invention too! It started in Ontario in the late ’80s as a goofy challenge between a bunch of Canadian runners—drink a beer, run a lap, repeat. It didn’t take long for the idea to spread, and by the early ’90s, students at Queen’s University in Kingston had come up with official rules (the “Kingston Rules”) that pretty much set the standard for today’s events.
Want to see the rest of the results? Check them out here.
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