Roger Bannister
Sir Roger Gilbert Bannister (born March 23, 1929) is a British former athlete best known as the first man to run the mile in less than 4 minutes. Bannister became a distinguished neurologist and Master of Pembroke College, Oxford retiring in 2001. He was born in Harrow, London.
Bannister was inspired by miler Sydney Wooderson's remarkable comeback in 1945. Eight years after setting the mile record and seeing it surpassed during the war years by the great Swedish runners Arne Andersson and runners:hagg gunder|Gunder Hagg]], Wooderson regained his old form and challenged Andersson over the distance in several races. Wooderson lost to Andersson, but set a British record of 4:04.2 in Göteborg on 9 September. Like Wooderson, Bannister would ultimately set a mile record, see it broken, then set a new personal best inferior to the new record.
Bannister started his running career at Oxford in the autumn of 1946 when 17. He had never worn running spikes previously or run on a track. His training was light, even compared to the standards of the day, but he showed promise in running a mile in 1947 in 4:24.6 on only three weekly half-hour training sessions.
He was selected as an Olympic “possible” in 1948, but declined as he felt he was not ready to compete at that level. However, he was further inspired to become a great miler by watching the 1948 Olympics. He set his training goals on the 1952 games in Helsinki.
In 1949, he improved in the 880 yards to 1:52.7 and won several mile races in 4:11. Then, after a period of six weeks with no training, he came in third at White City in 4:14.2.
The year 1950 saw more improvements, as he finished a relatively slow 4:13 mile on 1 July with an impressive 57.5 last quarter. Then, he ran the AAA 880 in 1:52.1, losing to Arthur Wint, then ran 1:50.7 for the 800 m at the European Championships on 26 August, placing third. Chastened by this lack of success, Bannister started to train harder and more seriously.
His increased attention to training paid quick dividends, as he won a mile race in 4:09.9 on 30 December, then in 1951 at the Penn Relays, Bannister broke away from the pack with a 56.7 final lap, finishing in 4:08.3. Then, in his biggest test to date, he won a mile race on 14 July in 4:07.8 at the AAA Championships at White City before 47,000 people. The time set a meet record and he defeated defending champion Bill Nankeville in the process.
Bannister suffered defeat, however, when Yugoslav Andrija Otenhajmer, aware of Bannister's final-lap kick, took a 1500 m race in Belgrade 25 August out at near-record pace, forcing Bannister to close the gap by the bell lap. Otnehajmer won in 3:47.0, Bannister set a personal best finishing second in 3:48.4. Bannister was no longer seen as invincible.
Bannister avoided racing after the 1951 season until late in the spring of 1952, saving his energy for Helsinki and the Olympics. He ran an 880 on 28 May in 1:53.00, then a 4:10.6 mile time-trial on 7 June, proclaiming himself satisfied with the results. At the AAA championships, he skipped the mile and won the 880 in 1:51.5. Then, 10 days before the Olympic final, he ran a 3/4 mile time trial in 2:52.9, which gave him confidence that he was ready for the Olympics as he considered the time to be the equivalent of a four-minute mile.
His confidence soon dissipated as it was announced there would be semi-finals for the 1500 m at the Olympics, and he knew that this favoured runners who had much deeper training regimes than he did. When he ran his semi-final, Bannister finished fifth and thereby qualified for the final, but felt “blown and unhappy.”
The 1500 m final on 26 July would prove to be one of the more dramatic in Olympic history. The race was not decided until the final meters, Josy Barthel of Luxembourg prevailing in an Olympic-record 3:45.28 (3:45.1 by official hand-timing) with the next seven runners all under the old record. Bannister finished fourth, out of the medals, but set a British record of 3:46.30 (3:46.0) in the process.
After the devastation of his failure at the 1952 Olympics, Bannister spent two months deciding whether to give up running. He decided on a new goal: To be the first man to run a mile in under four minutes. Accordingly, he intensified his training and did hard intervals.
On 2 May 1953, he made an attempt on the British record at Oxford. Paced by Chris Chataway, Bannister ran 4:03.6, shattering Wooderson's 1945 standard. “This race made me realize that the four-minute mile was not out of reach,” said Bannister.
On 27 June, a mile race was inserted onto the program of the Surrey Schools athletic meeting. American Bob McMillen, silver medalist in the 1500 m at the Olympics, set a strong pace with 59.6 and 1:59.7 for two laps. He gave up after 2 1/2 laps, but Chris Brasher, 11th in that same Olympic 1500 m final, took up the pace from a lap behind. At 3/4 mile, Bannister was at 3:01.8, the record - and first sub-four-minute mile - in reach. But the effort fell short with a finish in 4:02.0, a time exceeded by only Andersson and Hagg. British officials would not allow this performance to stand as a British record which, Bannister felt in retrospect, was a good decision. “My feeling as I look back is one of great relief that I did not run a four-minute mile under such artificial circumstances,” he said.
But other runners were making attempts at the four-minute barrier and coming close as well. American Wes Santee ran 4:02.4 on 5 June, the fourth-fastest mile ever. And, at the end of the year, Australian John Landy ran 4:02.0.
Then early in 1954, Landy made some more attempts at the distance. On 21 January, he ran 4:02.4 in Melbourne, then 4:02.6 on 23 February and at the end of the Australian season on 19 April, he ran 4:02.6 again.
Bannister had been following Landy's attempts, and was certain his Australian rival would succeed with each one. But, knowing that Landy's season-closing attempt on 19 April would be his last until he travelled to Finland for another attempt, Bannister knew he had to make his attempt soon.
This historic event took place on May 6, 1954 during a meet between British AAA and Oxford University at Iffley Road Track in Oxford. It was watched by about 3,000 spectators. With winds up to 25 miles per hour (40 km/h) prior to the event, Bannister had said twice that he favoured not running, to conserve his energy and efforts to break the 4-minute barrier; he would try again at another meet. However, the winds dropped just before the race was scheduled to begin, and Bannister did run. His time was 3 minutes 59.4 seconds. Two other runners, Brasher and Chataway, provided pacing whilst completing the race. Both went on to establish their own track careers. The race was broadcast live by BBC Radio and commented on by Harold Abrahams, of ”Chariots of Fire” fame.
The stadium announcer for the race was Norris McWhirter, who went on to publish and edit the Guinness Book of Records. He famously “teased” the crowd by drawing out the announcement of the time Bannister ran as long as possible:
“Ladies and gentlemen, here is the result of event 9, the one-mile: first, No. 41, R.G. Bannister, Amateur Athletic Association and formerly of Exeter and Merton Colleges, Oxford, with a time which is a new meeting and track record, and which - subject to ratification - will be a new English Native, British National, All-Comers, European, British Empire, and World Record. The time was 3…”
The roar of the crowd drowned out the rest of the announcement.
The claim that a 4-minute mile was once thought to be impossible by informed observers was and is a widely propagated myth cooked up by sportswriters and debunked by Bannister himself in his memoir, ”The Four Minute Mile”, 1955. The reason the myth took hold was that 4 minutes was a nice round number which was slightly better (1.4 seconds) than the world record for nine years — longer than it probably otherwise would have been because of the effect of World War II in interrupting athletic progress in the combatant countries. Note that the Swedish runners Gunder Hagg and Arne Andersson, in a series of head-to-head races in the period 1942–45, had already lowered the world mile record by 5 seconds to the pre-Bannister record. What is still impressive to knowledgeable track fans is that Bannister ran a 4-minute mile on very low-mileage training by modern standards.