The Four-Minute Mile.

The Four-Minute Mile. In 1954 British athlete and medical student Roger Bannister became the first person to run the mile in less than four minutes. . Bannister's Four-Minute Mile It was a cold and blustery spring day in 1954 when Roger Bannister stepped onto the track in Oxford, England, in an attempt to make athletics history. For more than a year the slender, sandy-haired medical student had trained relentlessly with one goal: to become the first man to run 1 mile in under four minutes. The wind, which had gusted up to 40.2 km/h (25 mph) in the hours before the race, dropped slightly as Bannister and his race opponents toed the starting line on the damp cinder track. Low clouds scudded above the English countryside surrounding the Iffley Road track. The gun sounded, and Bannister set off to try and break a barrier that many believed unbreakable. The mile run has exerted a particular fascination ever since runners began competing against one another. With their combination of speed, endurance, and power, milers are considered the purest runners in track and field. Although distances in international competition (including the Olympics) are computed in meters, the mile run remains a part of many major track meets, and the holder of the mile world record is still considered the premier middle distance runner in the world. Since Richard Webster of Great Britain ran a mile in 4 min 36.5 sec in 1865, the world record time in the mile had progressed slowly but inexorably downward, lingering unbroken for certain periods (such as 1886 to 1914) and being bested frequently in others (such as the 1930s, when four different runners held the record). Still, many experts scoffed at the idea that anyone would ever run four 60-second quarter-miles in succession. Two great Swedish runners, Arne Anderson and Gunder Hagg, swapped the record back and forth several times during the 1940s. In 1945 Hagg recorded a time of 4:01.4, which had stood for nine years when Bannister took the track for his record attempt. At the time, Bannister was hardly the most celebrated runner of his day. As a University of Oxford freshman he ran his first mile race on the Iffley Road track and failed even to break five minutes. Later, as a third-string miler for Oxford, he captured the mile at the annual Oxford-Cambridge meet with an unimposing 4 min 30.8 sec. Bannister continued to train, however, and to study the training methods of great milers. By 1950 he had lowered his time to 4 min 9.9 sec and had become convinced that he could break 4 minutes. After graduating from Oxford, Bannister went on to medical school at St. Mary's Hospital in London while continuing to train as a runner for the British Amateur Athletic Association (AAA) team. Applying his medical research, he calculated precisely the amount of oxygen intake a runner would need to sustain a pace of 60seconds per quarter-mile. He ran consecutive quarter-miles at a punishing pace, strengthening his heart and lowering his pulse rate from the low 70s to below 50. His slender build (Bannister was 6 ft 1/2 in and 154 pounds), long stride, and great endurance made him an ideal miler. So did his intelligence and strength of will. In 1952 he made the British Olympic team in the 1500 meters but finished a distant fourth in Helsinki, Finland, far behind gold medalist, Josef "Josy" Barthel of Luxembourg. By May 1954 Haag's record had stood for almost a decade and several runners were threatening to break 4 minutes. John Landy of Australia and Wes Santee of the United States had both run the mile faster than 4 min 3.5 sec. Bannister himself had run 4 min 2 sec in a specially paced run. The summer track season, Bannister had calculated, would see the four-minute barrier fall. Largely a self-taught runner, he accepted the training of Austrian Fritz Stampfl in the months leading up to his record attempt. They set their sights on a small, early May dual meet between Oxford and the British AAA. That Thursday morning, May 6, Bannister took a train to Oxford from London, where he had been studying for his final examinations. In the mile run that day he would be paced by AAA teammates Chris Chataway and Chris Brasher. The inclement weather drove Bannister to consider abandoning his record attempt. According to athletics lore, Bannister kept his eye on a flag at one end of the Iffley Road track; a few minutes before the start of the mile, the flag drooped, signaling a respite from the gusty winds. The race was on. The nervous runners false-started once before setting off cleanly. As planned, Chris Brasher led Bannister through the first half-mile. After a half lap (200 meters), Bannister called out to his teammate: "Faster! Faster!" Accelerating, the runners sped through the first quarter-mile in 57.5 seconds-ahead of pace. At 600 meters, Stampfl shouted from the infield: "Relax! Relax!" Running smoothly behind Brasher, Bannister reached the half-mile mark in 1 min 58.2 sec. Chataway sprinted into the lead, with Bannister on his heels. The third lap was the slowest yet: 62.3 seconds. Bannister needed a 59-second final quarter to break 4 minutes. He took the lead with 300 meters to run and began a long sprint to the finish line. Famous for his finishing kick, Bannister poured it on, his head thrown back and his face contorted in pain. He sprinted through the tape and collapsed, utterly exhausted, in the arms of his coach. His time: 3 min 59.4 sec. The insurmountable barrier had fallen. Bannister's world record stood for only seven weeks: John Landy ran a superb 3 min 58 sec in Turku, Finland, on June 21. In August of that year Landy and Bannister met at the British Empire Games in Vancouver, Canada, in one of the most celebrated mile races of all time. Bannister outsprinted Landy in the final 100 meters to win in 3 min 58.8 sec. Once the four-minute barrier had fallen, the mile record proceeded steadily downward. In 1975 John Walker of New Zealand became the first man to break 3 min 50 sec, running 3 min 49.4 sec. In 1993 Noureddine Morceli of Algeria ran 3 min 44.39 sec, a record that still stood in early 1997. Bannister himself ran competitively for only a few more months, giving up the sport to pursue his medical career. John Landy finished third in the 1500 meters at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia. Bannister went on to a distinguished career as a physician and sports official. He always downplayed the significance of his historic run, asserting that the four-minute mile was inevitable and that the true spirit of athletics lay in competition, not in a stopwatch reading. "Naturally, we wanted to achieve the honor of doing it first," he said after his record-setting run, "but the main essence of sport is a race against opponents rather than against clocks." 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