4 minute roger bannister7/31/2023 ![]() He also wanted to deliver something special for his country. "As it became clear that somebody was going to do it, I felt that I would prefer it to be me," Bannister said. "I knew enough medicine and physiology to know it wasn't a physical barrier, but I think it had become a psychological barrier."īannister, Landy and American miler Wes Santee were all threatening to break the mark. "There was no logic in my mind that if you can run a mile in 4 minutes, 1 and 2/5ths, you can't run it in 3:59," he said. ![]() Hagg's record was still the time to beat nine years later. But time and again, runners came up short. Sweden's Gunder Hagg came tantalizingly close to breaking the 4-minute mile in 1945, when he ran 4:01.4. By modern standards, his daily half-hour workout was remarkably light. With his rhythm thrown off, Bannister finished fourth.Ĭriticized by the British press and disappointed in his own performance, he decided to keep running, dedicating himself to beating the 4-minute mile.Īt the time, Bannister was a full-time medical student and had to juggle his studies with his training. But the organizers added an extra round of heats, meaning he would have to run on three consecutive days. He resolved to take up running seriously at Oxford.Īt the 1952 Helsinki Games, Bannister was considered the favorite for the gold in the 1,500 meters - the shorter metric-mile distance run in the Olympics. His passion for running took off in 1945 when his father took him to a track meet at London's White City Stadium, built to host the 1908 Olympics. ![]() At the outbreak of World War II, the family moved to the city of Bath, where Bannister sometimes ran to and from school. "It's amazing that more people have climbed Mount Everest than have broken the 4-minute mile," Bannister said in an interview with The Associated Press in 2012.īannister was born on March 23, 1929, in the London borough of Harrow. Bannister regarded that as his greatest race because it came against his fiercest rival. But he was a national hero to the end.īannister followed up his milestone a few months later by beating Australia's John Landy in the "Miracle Mile" or "Mile of the Century" at the Empire Games in Vancouver, British Columbia, with both men clocked at under 4 minutes. The image of the young Bannister - head tilted back, eyes closed and mouth agape as he strained across the finishing tape - captured the public's imagination, made him a global celebrity and boosted the morale of Britons still suffering through austerity measures.īannister soon retired from competition and went on to a long and distinguished career in medicine, and his mark was broken over and over again, with the world record for the mile now at 3:43.13. On a typically cool, wet and blustery English day in May nearly 64 years ago, Bannister put on his spikes and ran four laps around a cinder track in 3 minutes, 59.4 seconds, for one of the defining sporting achievements of the 20th century. He had been slowed in recent years by Parkinson's disease and, before that, an ankle shattered in a 1975 auto accident. LONDON - Roger Bannister, who as a lanky medical student at Oxford in 1954 electrified the sports world and lifted postwar England's spirits when he became the first athlete to run a mile in under 4 minutes, has died at 88.īannister died Saturday in Oxford, the city where he accomplished the feat many had thought impossible. Roger Bannister, the first runner to break the 4-minute barrier in the mile, has died.
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