(The 4 Minute Mile)
It was once thought that no human could run a mile in less than 4 minutes. A mile is 1.61 kilometers in distance. So that’s 4 laps full laps of a modern era athletics track, plus a further 9.34 metres.
Accurate times for running the mile were not recorded until after 1850, when the first precisely measured running tracks were built.
It was not until 1913 that there was an officially recognised world record: 4:14.4 (John Paul Jones, USA). In August 1923, the Finn, Paavo Nurmi had lowered it to 4:10.4.
In the 1930s there was a lot of media attention on the event and the record started to fall.
1931 4:09.2 Jules Ladoumegue, France
1933 4:07.6 Jack Lovelock, New Zealand
1934 4:06.8 Glen Cunningham, USA
1942 4:06.2 Gunder Hagg, Sweden
1942 4:06.2 Arne Andersson, Sweden
1942 4:04.6 Gunder Hagg, Sweden
1943 4:02.6 Arne Andersson, Sweden
1944 4:01.6 Arne Andersson, Sweden
1945 4:01.4 Gunder Hagg, Sweden
The record then remained unbroken for the next 9 years.
Some people said that the record could never be broken.
That it was impossible to run a mile in under 4 minutes.
A British medical student called Roger Bannister decided to give it a go.
And so did an Australian runner called John Landy.
Bannister had won the British championships at White City Stadium, London over a mile in 1951 with a time of 4:07.8, over 6 seconds slower than the world record.
He was selected to represent Great Britain at 1500m (the Metric Mile) in the 1952 Summer Olympics. At this point it is worth stating that at this point that for Bannister running was not the focus of his attention.
The Olympic Organisers decided to change the format of the even from a heat and final with rest days, to a three day sequence of a heat, semi-final and final on consecutive days.
Despite running in a new British record time of 3:46.40 in the final and finished 4th. His lack of medal success led him to be heavily criticised by the press for not training hard enough.
After the Olympics, Bannister spent some time deciding whether or not he wanted to continue running. He decided to continue running. Bannister said that if he had won the gold medal that day, he would have given up running to focus on his studies.
At this time he was undertaking full-time medical studies at St. Mary’s Hospital Medical School, and setting aside only 45 minutes a day for training. Nevertheless his time in the mile improve year after year.
He decided to devote himself to breaking the four-minute barrier for the mile.
He recruited a friend, Chris Chataway and with the help of two other friends, Chris Brasher and Don Macmillan set out to break the record.
Bannister knew that John Landy was getting closer and closer to breaking the 4 minute barrier.
Time was running out.
He decided to try and break the record in his first race of the 1954 season at the Iffley Road track in Oxford.
The weather wasn’t great.
On May 6, 1954. Roger Bannister broke crossed the finishing line in 3 minutes 59.4 seconds, a world’s record.
Bannister held the record for only 46 days before Landy broke the world record.
The two rivals met in the final of the mile race at the Vancover Commonwealth Games later in the year.
The race became known as the Miracle Mile. It was the first time the two runners competed against each other. It was the first time the world’s only two sub-four-minute milers competed against each other. It was also the first time two athletes ran the distance under four minutes in the same race.
Landy set off at the fast pace and led the race, Bannister slowly closed and passed him with 90 yards to go.