Bannister went the extra mile
The man who broke the four-minute mile barrier, Sir Roger Bannister, died aged 88 last weekend. Patrick Coyne tells of the pursuit of the record for the ‘Dream Mile’
THERE is a saying in sport that records are made to be broken. And wherever there are dedicated athletes, it follows that records will not stand for long.
In running, it is time over a recognised distance that competitors keep trying to reduce. Some times seem to remain impossible to reach, like a barrier, year after year.
Such was the case during the 1930s, 40s and 50s with the popular middle-distance race, the mile (1 609m).
The four-minute mile (or less) remained an impossible dream and began to work psychologically on runners.
In 1934, Glenn Cunningham (US) brought the time for the mile down to 4 minutes 6.8 seconds.
In 1937, Sydney Wooderson (UK) knocked fractions off this record by finishing in 4min 6.4sec.
Then came an onslaught by two brilliant Swedish runners.
In 1942, Gunder Hägg managed 4min 6.2sec.
In the same year, Arne Andersonn equalled his countryman’s time. But later that year Hägg brought the time down to 4min 4.6sec.
In 1943, Andersonn knocked a massive two seconds off the record by finishing in 4min 2.6sec, followed by a 4min 1.6sec in 1944. In 1945 Hägg did his best time, 4m 1.4sec.
Enter Australian John Landy. Although not a record, in 1952 he startled the world with a 4min 2.1sec mile.
But nobody could break the elusive 4 minutes. It remained a barrier, psychological or not.
In 1946, a 17-year-old Oxford University medical student had come second in the “Freshman’s Sports” mile race.
His name was Roger Bannister. His time was 4 minutes, 53 seconds.
He was tall and at least one coach said it was a pity, but he didn’t have the right build for middle-distance running.
After being beaten again in the mile by the same student, Bannister decided to improve his endurance and fitness by taking up cross-country running.
He had been awarded his Oxford “half-blue” colours when, in 1947, he was allowed to be part of the Oxford team for the mile in the Oxford versus Cambridge sports.
Because he was only the “thirdstring runner”, he was warned to be careful not to lead unless the Cambridge runners failed to set the right pace.
In Bannister’s own words: “When the gun fired, the Cambridge runners shot into the lead and I kept back at a respectful distance and stayed there until after the bell. I was as tired as anyone else, but suddenly… I felt a crazy desire to overtake the whole field. I raced through into the lead and a feeling of great mental and physical excitement swept over me. I forgot my tiredness. I suddenly tapped that hidden source of energy that I always suspected I possessed.
“I won by 20 yards in a time of 4min 30.8sec. I knew from that day that I could develop this newly found ability.”
Olympics
In the same year, Bannister was invited to run in the 1948 Olympic Games, but he declined, feeling he was not ready for competition of that standard.
His time when he ran for the Achilles Club in 1948 was 4min 18.7sec, his fastest to date. He then improved with a 4min 17.2sec at the Amateur Athletic Association’s Mile Championship, although he came in only in fifth place.
Watching the Olympic Games, however, changed Bannister’s attitude towards competitive running. From being only a personal matter, he realised he was caught up in the Olympic movement and all that it stood for. So, he started preparing for the 1952 Olympic Games.
In 1949, Bannister travelled to the US as a member of a combined Oxford-Cambridge team to compete against four American universities.
At Princeton he met Jack Lovelock, the famous British miler who had run the distance in 4min 7.6sec in 1933. Lovelock advised him to practise his “finishing burst” to the best advantage. He said that in every race there was a moment when the burst was least expected.
Bannister stored up this advice and used it in all his later races.
At Princeton, he ran his best mile to date: 4min 11.1sec.
In New Zealand in 1950, he took it down to 4min 9.9sec, and in 1951, in Philadelphia, to 4min. 8.3sec. It was in this race that Bannister “exploded” during the last lap in “unseemly” style, as the reporters put it. But he had won, using Lovelock’s advice to the full.
Now he began serious preparation for the Olympics. But he then suffered a serious injury when running around the cricket field of Harrow School in the dark, cutting his leg badly. The press had a field day, criticising his training methods. For one thing, he had no coach!
The 1952 Olympics at Helsinki featured no mile race, only 1 500m, which Bannister entered. He was staggered to find there were daily heats and the final with no day off in between, and suffered his worst placing: 4th in a time of 3min 46sec. It was, together with seven others’ times, a new Olympic record.
Despite the fact that 1 500m was not Bannister’s best distance, the press gave him a hard time for his “failure”.
Bannister wrote: “Wherever I went after John Landy’s exploits in 1952, the question was broached. Was it possible for a man to run a mile in four minutes? To me, the answer was obvious. As a result of more competition and better training, men would gradually run miles in faster and faster times, until four minutes was reached. Nor would the progress stop there. But – whether as athletes we liked it or not, the four-minute mile had become rather like an Everest – a challenge to the human spirit. It was a barrier that seemed to defy all attempts to break it. The Scandinavians called it the ‘Dream Mile’.”
Bannister said he had decided some years before that the Oxford track should be the scene of his attempt on the four-minute mile. On May 2, 1953 he tried, with the help of his friend Chris Chataway, who ran as hard as he could for the first ¾ mile. Bannister then went into the lead and finished with a new British record of 4min 3.6sec. They had not run the first half-mile fast enough. However, this race, said Bannister, made him believe the four-minute mile was not out of his reach. But would someone else reach the goal first?
Bannister again suffered an injury from trying to run too fast in a quarter-mile time trial. He pulled a muscle, but recovered from it in 10 days.
Meanwhile people were saying it was only a question of time before Landy ran a four-minute mile. Then Bannister slipped on a hospital’s polished floor and spent the rest of the day limping…
The day came when Bannister had decided that he would make his serious attempt on the “Dream Mile”. Chris Chataway and Chris Brasher had both agreed to help him by setting the right pace in the first part of the race.
Effortlessly
But a strong wind was blowing on the Oxford track. Should the attempt be postponed? But now there came a slight lull in the gusts. Bannister said the race was on!
Here is Bannister’s own account of the race: “The gun fired. Brasher went into the lead and I slipped in effortlessly behind him, feeling tremendously full of running. My legs seemed to meet no resistance at all. We seemed to be going so slowly! I shouted ‘Faster!’ but Brasher kept his head and did not change his pace. Then I heard the first lap time, 57.5sec. Perfect. In the excitement my knowledge of pace had deserted me.
“At one and a half laps I was still worrying about the pace. A voice shouting ‘Relax!’ penetrated to me above the crowd noise. I learnt later that it was my friend and parttime coach, Franz Stampfl, who had shouted. I obeyed. I barely noticed the half mile, passed in 1min 58 sec. Chataway went into the lead. At three-quarters of a mile the effort was still barely perceptible. The time was 3min 0.7sec, and by now the crowd were roaring. Somehow I had to run that last lap in 59 seconds. At the start of the back straight, 300 yards from the finish, I pounced past Chataway.
“I had a moment of mixed joy and anguish, when my mind took over. It raced well ahead of my body and drew it compellingly forward. I felt that the moment of a lifetime had come. There was no pain. The world seemed to stand still or did not exist. The only reality was the next 200 yards of track under my feet…
“I drove on, impelled by a combination of fear and pride. The air I breathed filled me with the spirit of the track where I had run my first race. The noise in my ears was that of the faithful Oxford crowd. I turned the last bend and there were only 50 yards more.
“Those last few seconds seemed never-ending. The faint line of the finishing tape stood ahead as a haven of peace after the struggle. The arms of the world were waiting to receive me if only I reached the tape without slackening my speed… I leapt at the tape like a man taking his last spring to save himself from the chasm that threatened to engulf him.
“My effort was over and I collapsed almost unconscious. Then I heard the announcement: ‘Result of one mile: time… three minutes –.’ The rest was lost in the roar of the crowd. I grabbed Brasher and Chataway and together we scampered around the track in a burst of spontaneous joy. We had done it – the three of us!”
It is significant that Bannister’s modesty made him continue in the first person plural vein: “We shared a place where no man had yet ventured – secure for all time, however fast men might run miles in future…”
They learnt later that the news had leaked through to the Oxford Union, where a member moved the adjournment of the House for 3 minutes, 59.4 seconds. The new president of the union refused to accept the motion because “notice had not been given”.
This was not end of the story. Only a month later, Landy beat Bannister’s record with a 3min 58sec. Bannister was stunned. So soon! But he sent his congratulations to Landy like the true sportsman he was.
This was still not the end of the story. At the Empire Games in Vancouver that year, Bannister and Landy, for the first time, were to compete against each other in the same race.
Disaster
Landy was training far more energetically than Bannister, who imagined that Landy looked as if he would beat him easily. Then the week before the race Bannister picked up a cold on his chest. Disaster! He thought he had thrown it off in time for the race. This race needs a whole article to describe it.
Bannister won by five yards in 3min 58.8sec, but he and Landy had broken four minutes in the same race. This “Dream Mile” became known as the “Miracle Mile”.
This was Bannister’s greatest ever race, and his last in serious competitive running.
Landy went on to improve on Bannister’s time and became one of the world’s greatest middle-distance runners.
Bannister was knighted by the Queen in 1975 for his services to athletics.
The first South African runner to beat the four-minute mile time was De Villiers Bester Lamprecht, who achieved it on November 13, 1964. Lamprecht repeated the feat five times. Since then 57 South African men have run a dream mile.
The First Four Minutes