Monday Milestone: The Miracle Mile

“Doctors and scientists said that breaking the four minute mile was impossible, that one would die in the attempt. Thus, when I got up from the track after collapsing at the finish line, I figured I was dead”
– Roger Bannister after his famous mile in 1954

This Week in History:
1954, May 6
Englishman Roger Bannister becomes the first man to run the four minute mile at Oxford.
 

The gun sounded. The clock started. Roger Bannister took off and started running with gusto with the race track in front of him. One mile. 5,280 feet. 1,609 metres. Whichever way you look at it, it had always taken a minimum of four minutes to complete.

Down at Iffley Road, the Oxford university training track, the 25 year old medical student remembered his training of the previous weeks. Fierce workouts fitting into his lunch breaks, Bannister had run ten straight quarter miles inside a minute, and that day was no different.

This was not a competition, instead just a training run, which of course makes it more difficult to keep pace when speed is marked only by a couple of pacemakers. Nonetheless as Bannister sprinted through a crosswind, around his first lap of the grounds, the first quarter mile was on pace. He wasn’t only racing the clock, but also history. They said it would never be done. That it never could be done. The so-called “experts” and “physicians” of the time not only said the barrier was unbreakable, but it would be dangerous to the health of anyone that got close.

By the halfway mark, Bannister had chased down his pacemakers, who’d been out in front like rabbits at a greyhound track. But the importance of what he had achieved was the first half mile in 1:58.2. He was on pace. Better than that, he was five seconds faster than his recent impressive achievements in training.

The bell rang. Bannister entered the fourth and final lap, with a time of 3:00.5. Steadying himself, as he entered the back straight, he drew away from the pace setters. Then by all accounts, Bannister threw his head back, sprinted down the back straight, and rounded the final bend.  

This was it. This was the moment. Already on world record pace, here was his chance. He’d come so close so many times to this point, but his final push to the line is legendary. When Bannister broke the tape, he slumped over, utterly exhausted.  Spectators watching that day fell silent and crowded around. They knew it had been quick. But how quick?

Then the time was announced:
“Three….”

That was all they needed.  Bannister’s remarkable time of 3:59.4 was drowned out by the cheers. The once-considered insurmountable four minute mile, had been achieved in what some consider the greatest athletic achievement of the twentieth century.

There is a curious postscript to this tale though. The four minute mile had taken decades to break. But by the end of 1957, just three and a half years later, sixteen runners had broken four minutes, including Australian John Landy just 46 days later proving the barrier was just as mental as physical.

But breaking a barrier that was once considered insurmountable, outside competition, just Roger Bannister and the clock, was a truly remarkable mile. One that some may call, a miracle.

 

Milestone Five: Important sporting barriers broken

5.  Athletics – Pole Vault – six metres
In 1992 Sergei Bubka clears 6.15 – the first man to do so. Only fourteen have cleared the mark since.

4. Swimming – Men’s 1500m freestyle – fifteen minutes
Russian swimmer Vladimir Salnikov becomes the first man to swim the 1500m in under fifteen minutes in 1980

3. Swimming – Women’s 100m freestyle – one minute
Australian Dawn Fraser becomes the first female swimmer to clock under a minute during the trials for the 1962 Commonwealth Games with a time of 59.9 seconds

2.  Athletics – Men’s 100m sprint – ten seconds
With the introduction of electronic timing, Jim Hines in 1968 becomes the first man to run the blue ribbon Olympic event in less than ten seconds.

1.  Athletics – Men’s mile – four minutes
In Oxford, Roger Bannister becomes the first man ever to break the four minute mile. He and Australian John Landy endured one of the great athletic battles of the twentieth century.