Perhaps it takes one sporting giant to truly appreciate the towering performance of another. Exactly 70 years ago today, Sir Roger Bannister became the first person to run a mile in under four minutes, a target that existed purely in the realms of the fantastical until, on that blustery Oxford day in 1954, he subverted the possible. How good was it? Well, when I asked Sebastian Coe to put it into a wider context last week, he replied: “On every metric, I think it is arguably at the top of all sporting achievements in the last 100 years.”
That is high praise indeed from someone who was himself a double Olympic champion and broke multiple world records. And while the fact that Bannister’s time of 3min 59.4sec chopped two seconds off the previous world record is staggering enough, that was only part of Coe’s case. “People don’t appreciate the mental barrier that he also had to break through,” he pointed out. “He was a doctor. And he would say to me: ‘I used to read articles in medical journals saying that if anybody tried it, they would probably die in the process’.”
Coe acknowledged other significant obstacles: Bannister grew up on wartime rations, raced on a cinder track more suitable to speedway than fast times, and wore racing spikes so heavy that, when Coe held them decades later, he found that one weighed more than his two modern shoes combined.
Bannister also held down a full-time job and when he and Coe compared their training diaries before they broke their mile world records, they both laughed: “I probably did in three days the intensity of what he did in a week and a half,” says Coe of his good friend.
“He was privately very funny,” he adds. “I remember having tea with him in his house at Oxford and he told me that he had Parkinson’s. And I said, ‘Roger, I’m really sorry, have you had a second opinion?’ And he looked at me absolutely dismissively and said ‘why would I do that? I diagnosed it myself.’ Because he was a top neurologist.”
Before his death in 2018, I was fortunate enough to speak to Bannister a couple of times, and relive that famous day through his eyes. It began with a bowl of porridge for breakfast, a morning spent in hospital, and an earlier-than-planned train to Oxford. At this point, Bannister feared the 25mph gusts would force him to abort his attempt. But by chance he bumped into his coach Franz Stampfl who, having spent months building Bannister’s aerobic and anaerobic capacities, now had to work on his mind.
“Roger, the weather is terrible, but even if it is as bad as this, I think you are capable of running a mile in good conditions in 3:56,” Stampfl told him. “If you pass up today, you may never forgive yourself for the rest of your life. You will feel pain, but what is it? It’s just pain.”
But still he dithered. At 5.15pm – 45 minutes before the race was due to start – it began to rain and Bannister could sense his pacemakers, Chris Brasher and Chris Chataway, becoming increasingly irritated that he hadn’t made up his mind. But when the squalls eased and the flag at the church tower dropped 15 minutes later, the attempt was on.
I remembered Bannister telling me how he felt so good on the first lap he shouted “faster” at Brasher, even though he flew through it in 57.7 secs. About how halfway was reached in 1:58:3 before a slower third lap meant that he needed to go under 59 seconds for the final lap. Then how the adrenaline kicked in, and history was made.
“It was as if all my limbs were caught in an ever-tightening vice,” Bannister remembered in his autobiography. “Blood surged from my muscles to my brain and seemed to fell me. I felt like an exploded flashbulb. Vision became black and white. I knew that I had done it before I heard the time.”
The four-minute barrier was shattered. And so were people’s perceptions. Six weeks later, the Australian John Landy lowered the mark again to 3 mins 58.0sec. Yet Bannister’s run still resonates, largely because of the sheer scale of the achievement and the fact it was filmed by the BBC.
This was also an era where mythical barriers were flown through, clambered over, ran down. In 1947, Chuck Yeager became the first man to break the sound barrier. Six years later, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay conquered Everest. And in 1954 came Bannister, a new king of the wild frontier. Yet because of athletics’ strict rules over amateur status, he was unable to benefit financially from this achievement.
Indeed the rules were so punitive, that when the foreign office sent Bannister to the US a week later in the hope he would strengthen Anglo-American relations, the trip was dominated by fears he might inadvertently do something that could cause him to be banned from the sport.
A scheduled appearance on the game show I’ve Got a Secret, sponsored by RJ Reynolds Tobacco, was cancelled over fears that Bannister could be charged with professionalism. And he wasn’t even able to collect the ‘Miracle Mile Trophy’ during his visit as it was worth £180 – way above the IAAF’s rule that a trophy could cost no more than £12 if the athlete planned to keep it. So Bannister had to accept a £11 replica instead.
As John Russell, the head of the British Informational Service, told the Manchester Guardian it was best not to take any chances. “As maybe in an international meeting, someone else, perhaps the Russians or some other nations, could question Bannister’s amateur rating.”
But for Bannister, sport was not about money but giving one’s all and learning life lessons. As he put it: “Sport is about not being wrapped up in cotton wool. Sport is about adapting to the unexpected and being able to modify plans at the last minute. Sport, like all life, is about taking your chances.”
Meanwhile his legend lives on. At 6pm on Monday, the Iffley Road track where he set his record will host a series of mile races, with several former world record holders, including Hicham El Guerrouj, Noureddine Morceli, Filbert Bayi and Steve Cram flying in to pay homage. “And if you stopped people in the street and asked them who Roger Bannister is, a good chunk would still remember,” says Coe, about the man who showed them all the way.
