Brief, record run remains an untainted sports achievement
By Associated Press
Published May 2, 2004
OXFORD, England - Fifty years ago, a young medical student ran four laps around a cinder track at Oxford University on a dank, blustery May evening in front of about 1,000.
With a late burst of speed, Roger Bannister shattered one of sport's most fabled physical and psychological barriers, running a mile in under four minutes. Half a century later, that magic time of 3:59.4 stands out as one of the defining athletic achievements of the 20th century and a throwback to an amateur era not racked by the excesses of steroids, money and commercialization. More than 2,000 runners around the globe have since broken the four-minute mark, and the world record is now 16 seconds faster.
The enduring image of Bannister - head tilted back, eyes closed and mouth agape as he strains across the finish on May6, 1954 - is testament to an extreme test of speed and stamina that captured the public's imagination.
"It became a symbol of attempting a challenge in the physical world of something hitherto thought impossible," Bannister, now a 75-year-old grandfather, told the Associated Press at his Oxford home, minutes from the Iffley Road track where he made history. "I'd like to see it as a metaphor not only for sport, but for life and seeking challenges."
In 1953, after Edmund Hillary scaled Mount Everest and Queen Elizabeth II was crowned, Bannister felt inspired to make his own mark by attacking the four-minute mile. "It stood there as something that was waiting to be done, and I was in the right place at the right time and was ready to do it," he said.
Bannister wasn't the only athlete zeroing in on the mark. In Australia, John Landy stunned the world by running 4:02.1 in December 1952. Then Wes Santee, nicknamed the Kansas Cowboy, ran 4:02.4 in June 1953.
Bannister picked the first match race of the season, Oxford vs. the Amateur Athletic Union at Iffley Road on May6, to go for the record. Fellow British runner Chris Brasher went out in front as planned, with Bannister right behind. Brasher took them through the half-mile in 1:58, then Chris Chataway moved to the front on the third lap and a time of 3:00.5. Bannister would have to run the last lap in 59 seconds. With 250 yards to go, he surged past Chataway to the finish, his long arms and legs pumping and his lungs gasping for oxygen.
Bannister's record stood just 46 days. With Chataway again setting the pace, Landy ran 3:57.9 in Turku, Finland, June21.
Bannister predicts the current world record - 3:43.13, set by Morocco's Hicham El Guerrouj in 1999 - will be lowered to 31/2 minutes, but not for another 50 years.
Still, Bannister will be acclaimed as the man whose famous run transcended the sport. The lasting fascination, he says, springs from a simple message: "A man could, with his own two feet, overcome all difficulties to reach a pinnacle upon which he could declare, "No one has ever done this before."'
