![]() His training partner, Chris Brasher, served as rabbit and took him through the first lap in 57.5 and the second in 60.7, giving him a half-mile split of 1:58.2. To break four minutes, Bannister of course needed to average just under 60 seconds per lap on the wet, rough cinder track. "In life, you must take your chances."Ī flag near the stadium was snapping in the wind, but a half-hour before his race Bannister saw the flap fall limp. "If you have the slightest chance today and don't take it, you may never forgive yourself," Coach Franz Stampfl told him. He intentionally hadn't announced his record attempt plan, fearing he would have to call it off at the last moment because of the weather. But when the day broke cold, windy and rainy, Bannister had doubts. With time growing short, Bannister planned to make his record attempt in his first race of the season in a meet between the Amateur Athletic Association and his alma mater, Oxford University, on Oxford's Iffley Road track. But Landy fell two seconds short and announced that he would make another attempt in Europe in June. "As it became clear that somebody was going to do it, I felt that I would prefer it to be me," says Bannister.īannister feared that Landy would get there first because, while Bannister was training in the British winter, Landy was racing in the Australian summer. A year later, Bannister ran 4:02.0 and America's Wes Santee 4:02.4. ![]() Recalls Bannister, "The fact that (the record) stood for nine years was used as an argument for some people to say, `Well, there has to be a barrier somewhere. And something elusive.Īfter all attempts failed to break Haegg's record, many postulated that a four-minute mile was simply impossible for human flesh and bone. It would have been one thing if the record had been 4:10 or even 3:58, but there was something magic about four minutes. Gunder Haegg's record of 4:01.3, set in 1945, stood nine years, making the nice, even number of four minutes for four laps an irresistible target. Impossible? That's what the experts said about the four-minute mark. ![]() Now there is talk of breaking 3:40 and even 3:30. The latest world record came just last year, when Algeria's Noureddine Morceli ran 3:44.39 - a performance that would have placed him at least 100 meters (or a full straightaway) ahead of Bannister's first sub-four mile. The world record for the mile has fallen 17 times in the 40 years since Bannister's run. Earlier this year, a 41-year-old man, Ireland's Eamonn Coghlan, ran a mile in 3:58.15. A handful of high school students have run sub-four miles. John Walker and Steve Scott have run more than 100 sub-four miles each. All they had needed was someone to show them the way.Īccording to Track & Field News, since Bannister's historic run, 703 men have run four-minute miles a total of 3,615 times in 1,180 races. By the time the Melbourne Olympics arrived 21/2 years later, nine other men had run four-minute miles. Only 46 days after Bannister did what had been thought to be impossible, Australia's John Landy ran faster. "Now that it's been broken, I'm sure other runners will break it, too." Bannister recognized this instantly."I think people have been frightened of the four-minute mile," he said shortly after his historic race. All those pioneers had this much in common: They broke barriers, both mental and physical, and opened the floodgates for others to follow. It ranks with Hillary ascending Everest, with Yeager breaking the sound barrier, with Peary reaching the North Pole. It was a feat that was compared with Linbergh's trans-Atlantic flight. Forty years ago, on May 6, 1954, Great Britain's Roger Bannister ran history's first sub four-minute mile. With relatively little fanfare, the anniversary of one of sport's most hallowed milestones came and went last month.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |