Roger Bannister: The Four Minute Mile

On a gusty spring afternoon in Oxford in 1954, Roger Bannister, who has sadly died aged 88, became an athlete of world distinction, establishing himself as the most celebrated British sportsman of the period following World War 2. He never won an Olympic title, he set only one individual world record (which he relinquished after barely six weeks) and he retired from running at the height of his powers when he was only 25. But on 6 May 1954, on the Iffley Road cinder track that he had helped to lay as an undergraduate a few years earlier, he ran a mile in under four minutes, a target that had begun to assume almost superhuman proportions in the eyes of the public, the media and many athletes, too.

Runners in Europe, the US and Australia had whittled down their mile times as the world record assumed an ever-increasing importance. In the US, Wes Santee clocked 4min 2.4sec, and some weeks later failed in a widely publicised attempt at a four-minute mile. In Australia, John Landy ran four separate races in and around 4min 2sec. Bannister himself, with the help of Christopher Chataway, broke the British record in Oxford with 4min 3.6sec.

But nobody came really close to the four-minute mark; indeed, no one seriously threatened the world record of 4min 1.4sec set in 1945 by the Swede Gunder Hägg. Early in 1954 Landy announced that he would spend the early part of the summer training – and racing – in Finland. Expectations of a four-minute mile were now at boiling point, and Bannister knew he had to strike fast. With two friends providing the most elite pace making squad that could be imagined – Chataway, who later that summer took the 5000m world record, and Chris Brasher, who won an Olympic gold medal in the steeplechase two years later – Bannister devised an even-paced three-and-a-quarter-lap schedule that would leave him to capitalise on his speed and strength in the final 350 or so yards.

On that momentous evening, with the stiff breeze moderating and the showers stopping barely an hour before the race, the plan worked. Brasher led for a metronomic two laps, Chataway for the next one, and a bit more. Bannister, always on the leader’s shoulder, needed to run the final quarter-mile in 59 seconds. He collapsed at the finish, and revived to hear another friend, the statistician Norris McWhirter, announce over the public address: “a track record, English Native record, British National, British All-Comers, European, British Empire and World record; the time: three …” (the rest drowned out by cheering) “… minutes, 59.4 seconds.”

Hägg’s record had stood for almost nine years. Bannister’s lasted just 46 days before Landy, running from the front at a meeting in Turku, Finland, posted an astounding 3min 58sec, to set up the “Mile of the Century” at the British Empire Games (as they were still called) in Vancouver early in August. The two milers arrived in Canada to a media frenzy, and there was a real danger that the race itself would prove a dismal anti-climax. But their widely differing strategies ensured that the final, far from descending into a cat-and-mouse tactical duel, would produce one of the great confrontations in the sport’s history. Landy needed to run the finish out of Bannister; Bannister needed to run even-paced laps and conserve enough energy for the sustained power of his sprint.

Landy led from the gun, increased his lead as the first two laps progressed to seven yards, 10 yards, 15 yards at one point. Then gradually, halfway through the third lap, Landy began to slow and Bannister’s even stride pulled the gap tighter and tighter. By the bell he was back to Landy’s shoulder, but tired. At the end of the final bend he flung himself past Landy’s right shoulder just, as chance would have it, Landy glanced anxiously over his left. He was away, the Australian could not respond, and the Mile of the Century was Bannister’s. Both men, applauded to the skies by the packed stadium, had run under four minutes.

Bannister trained on for one final triumph at the end of August, a prestigious, hard-fought but ultimately comfortable victory in the European 1500 metres in Berne, Switzerland, in a championship record – a commanding exhibition from a thoroughly confident athlete in a week when he was the only British man to win a gold medal. And that was it. He never competed again.

Rest well Sir Roger Bannister.