Athlete paced Bannister to first sub-four-minute mile
Sir Christopher Chataway, who died aged 82 on Sunday, was the British athlete who paced Roger Bannister to the first sub-four minute mile, finishing second himself. He later served in the governments of three Conservative prime ministers; was a pioneer of commercial broadcasting; and served as chairman of the U.K.’s Civil Aviation Authority.
Although “built all wrong for running” and fond of a post-race cigar, Chataway was a world-class competitor from the half-mile to the half-marathon, with a fearsome final kick. He broke the world 5,000 metres record; competed in the 1952 and 1956 Olympics; and in 1955 broke the four-minute barrier himself, finishing second to Laszlo Tabori in 3 minutes 59.8 seconds.
A “really fast mile” had been promised when the Amateur Athletics Association met Oxford University on May 6, 1954, as Bannister, a medical student, set out to beat his British record of 4:3.6.
With Chris Brasher, Chataway set a cracking pace, recording 4:7.2. Bannister excelled with laps of 0:57.5, 0:60.7, 0:62.3 and a final 0:58.9. As he collapsed through the tape, three timekeepers certified the result, then Norris McWhirter took the loud-hailer. Cheers drowned him out as he gave the time as “Three ...”. Bannister had shattered Gunder Haegg’s world record by two seconds with a run of 3:59.4.
For Chataway, the bridge from athletics to politics was television. He was the reader of ITN’s (Independent Television News) first bulletin on Oct. 11, 1955. Setting up commercial radio as Minister for Posts and Telecommunications, he would spend 12 years with the medium as chairman of the London radio news station LBC.
He was in the vanguard of social reform, co-sponsoring Humphry Berkeley’s Bill to legalize homosexuality and telling for the Ayes in the 1964 vote to end capital punishment.
Chataway left Parliament in 1974, moving effortlessly into the boardroom before his appointment by John Major to head the Civil Aviation Authority. He remained an athlete at heart, querying the creation of a Sports Council, opposing Margaret Thatcher’s efforts to force a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics and chairing the Commonwealth Games Council and UK Athletics. Taking up running again after stopping smoking, he turned in a mile in 5:48 at the age of 64.
With t h ree f riends, Chat away was a prime mover of World Refugee Year, which raised more than $15 million in Britain alone and brought him the 1960 Nansen Medal. He was an early chairman of Oxfam, and went on to chair Action Aid and the Bletchley Park Trust.
Christopher John Chataway was born in London on Jan. 31, 1931, spending his childhood in Sudan, where his father was in the political service.
At Magdalen College, Oxford, Chataway won a crosscountry Blue in his first term. Early in 1952, he cut Bannister’s Oxford mile record to 4: 10.2; that July he knocked five seconds off the British allcomers’ two-mile record.
In the 1952 Helsinki Olympics he tripped going for the lead in the 5,000 metres, recovering to finish fifth, 12 seconds behind Emil Zatopek. In his last year at Oxford, in the Varsity match, he cut his best for the mile to 4:8.4, then the third fastest by a Briton. In May 1953 Bannister set his record of 4:3.6, paced by Chataway.
Chataway was married for the first time in 1959, to Anna Lett. They had two sons and a daughter.
He married Carola Walker in 1976. The couple had two sons.