Roger Bannister’s Dream Mile turns 55 – A review one of the most prominent world records

When on that infamous May 6, 1954, Norris McWhirter announced the results on Iffley Road in Oxford, the spectators only heard the first digit: 3. “I am certain that not a single person was able to understand the 59.4 seconds. The crowd just wanted to hear the three,“ said McWhirter in an interview on BBC.

More than 1,000 spectators turned the small stadium that is part of Oxford University into a madhouse. They had become witnesses to one of the most noteworthy and prominent track world records of all time—the dream mile. The Englishman Roger Bannister was the first one to run the exactly 1,609.3 metre long distance under four minutes: a time of 3:59,4 minutes was stopped.

People involved in athletics had been talking about the dream mile for almost 20 years—it was just a question when and who the first person would be. “The four-minute-mile had something special, something magical about it. It was its symmetry,“ declared Norris McWhirter, who, by the way, is also one of the founders of the Guinness Book of World Records. One mile is a little bit more than four rounds on the track. The four minutes fits it perfectly. Norris McWhirter is no longer around to experience today’s (Wednesday) 55-year anniversary of the dream mile. He died some years ago of a heart attack while playing tennis.

Another important companion of Roger Bannister passed away a little over six years ago: Chris Brasher. The later Olympic gold medallist in the 3000m (1956) and founder of the London Marathon was the first pace maker on that notorious 6th of May. Despite the windy and rainy weather, the then 25-year-old Roger Bannister had his mind set on trying to set the world record. He was running out of time.

The Australian, John Landy, especially appeared to be capable of breaking the four-minute-mark. The tension before the race was so great that Brasher first caused a false start. After the second attempt, he led his friend Bannister exactly according to plan to the 1000m mark. Then Chris Chataway took over the leader role for another 350 metres before Bannister stormed off to his dream time.

The athletics author Heinz Vogel wrote in his volume “Record Breakers in Track and Field“: After year-long discussions for, against, and about the ’dream mile’, it hit like a bomb all over the world. The headlines in the leading London papers read ‘An English victory over the world,’ or ‘Be proud to be an Englishman’.

At a meeting of the honourable Oxford Union Society, a motion was made to interrupt the meeting for 3:59.4 minutes to honour Bannister’s record. The famous Swede, Gunder Hägg, who himself was a great mile runner in the period from 1942 and 1946 and holder of the world record up to that May 6, 1954 (4:01.3 minutes) said: “I was convinced that this intelligent Brit would be the first to run a time under four minutes.” At the time, Roger Bannister was studying medicine at Oxford and later worked as a neurologist.

”Back then, the dream time was practically waiting to be run. I was at the right place at the right time and capable of doing it,” Roger Bannister told the news agency AP. “My race became a symbol for taking on a challenge. I like to look at this world record as a metaphor not only for sport, but for life and all of its challenges.”

In honour of the anniversary, a sport fest was being celebrated 5 years ago on Iffley Road in Oxford. Roger Bannister, now a spectator, had been the centre of attention. At 6 p.m., at exactly the same time as 55 years ago, the starting gun  sent off the international field on a mile race.

Five year s ago, the four minutes was not pose a hurdle in Oxford.

Takeover from Wikipedia:

Sir Roger Gilbert Bannister, CBE (born 23 March 1929) is an English former athlete best known as the first man in history to run the mile in less than 4 minutes. Bannister became a distinguished neurologist and Master of Pembroke College, Oxford, before retiring in 2001.

Sir Roger was the inaugural recipient of the Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year award in January 1955 (1954 Sportsman of the Year).
 
Early life
Roger Bannister was born in Harrow, England. He was educated at the City of Bath Boys' Grammar School, Beechen Cliff School, University College School, London, Exeter College and Merton College, Oxford, and at St Mary's Hospital Medical School (now part of Imperial College 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 Gunder Hägg, 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 better than 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 Olympics 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. Otenhajmer won in 3:47.0, Bannister set a personal best finishing second in 3:48.4. Bannister was no longer seen as invincible.

Sports Council and knighthood

He later became the first Chairman of the Sports Council (now called Sport England) and was knighted for this service in 1975.[3] Under his aegis, central and local government funding of sports centres and other sports facilities was rapidly increased, and he also initiated the first testing for use of anabolic steroids in sport.

Training anecdote

As a medical student at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, Roger Bannister chose to use his lunch hour for a 9 minute jog to Paddington track, where he ran 10 X 400 m in about 60 s with two minutes rest, then he ran back to work. The whole procedure took 46 minutes, leaving him 14 minutes to eat his lunch.

Legacy

On the 50th anniversary of running the 4-minute mile, Bannister was interviewed by the BBC's sports correspondent Rob Bonnet. At the conclusion of the interview, Bannister was asked whether he looked back on the 4-minute mile as the most important achievement of his life. Bannister replied to the effect that 'no, he rather saw his subsequent forty years of practicing as neurologist and some of the new procedures he introduced as being more significant'. His major contribution in academic medicine was in the field of autonomic failure, an area of neurology focusing on illnesses characterized by certain automatic responses of the nervous system (for example, elevated heart rate when standing up) not occurring.

For his efforts Sir Roger Bannister was also made the inaugural recipient of the Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year award in 1955 (he was given the award as the 1954 Sportsman of the Year but it was awarded in January, 1955) and is one of the few non-Americans recognized by the American published magazine as such.

Sir Roger Bannister is the subject of the ESPN movie "Four Minutes" (2005). This movie is a dramatization; its major departures from the factual record being the creation of a fictional character as Bannister's coach, when this was actually Franz Stampfl, an Austrian, and secondly his meeting his spouse, Moyra Jacobsson, in the early 1950s, when in fact they met in London only a few months before the Miracle Mile itself took place.

The 50th anniversary of Sir Roger's achievement was marked by a commemorative British 50 pence coin. The reverse of the coin shows the legs of a runner and a stop watch (stopped at 3:59.4).

Bannister, arguably the most famous record-setter in the mile, is also the man who held the record for the least amount of time, at least since the IAAF started to ratify records.