"the Commonwealth Games, Vancouver's rowing community was quietly confident that the Canadian eight would surprise the world. The 1954 Commonwealth Games teams arrived in mid-July, but attention was focused on track and field, where, it was rumoured, an Englishman named Roger Bannister was going to try to run the mile in four minutes or less. As far as the Canadian public knew, rowing would not be one of the exciting events for Canada. The ""Miracle Mile"" took place between Roger Bannister and John Landy at Empire Stadium, but the biggest upset of the games occurred when the Canadian eight, generally"
"Roger Bannister Sir Roger Gilbert Bannister (23 March 1929 – 3 March 2018) was a British middle-distance athlete and neurologist who ran the first sub-4-minute mile. At the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, Bannister set a British record in the 1500 metres and finished in fourth place. This achievement strengthened his resolve to become the first athlete to finish the mile run in under four minutes. He accomplished this feat on 6 May 1954 at Iffley Road track in Oxford, with Chris Chataway and Chris Brasher providing the pacing. When the announcer, Norris McWhirter, declared , the cheers of the crowd"
"achievement, he felt his performances at the 1952 Olympics and the 1954 Commonwealth Games were more significant than running the sub-4-minute mile. Ironically, although Roger Bannister is arguably the most famous record-setter in the mile, he is also the man who held the record for the shortest period of time, at least since the IAAF started to ratify records. For his efforts, Bannister was also made the inaugural recipient of the ""Sports Illustrated"" Sportsperson of the Year award for 1954 (awarded in January 1955) and is one of the few non-Americans recognised by the American-published magazine as such. In a"
"University in 2014. Bannister was made an Honorary Freeman of the London Borough of Harrow on 4 May 2004, and was granted the Freedom of the City of Oxford in 2004. In 2014 he appeared as a guest on BBC Radio 4's Midweek with Libby Purves, Kevin Warwick and Rachael Stirling. Roger Bannister Sir Roger Gilbert Bannister (23 March 1929 – 3 March 2018) was a British middle-distance athlete and neurologist who ran the first sub-4-minute mile. At the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, Bannister set a British record in the 1500 metres and finished in fourth place. This achievement strengthened"
"up with the idea for the ""Guinness Book of Records"", it was Chataway who suggested his old university friends Norris and Ross McWhirter as editors, knowing of their liking for facts. Chataway continued with his running. When Roger Bannister ran the first sub-four minute mile on 6 May 1954 at Oxford University's Iffley Road Track, Chataway and Chris Brasher were his pacemakers. He finished in second place in the 5000 m at the European Athletics Championship of 1954, 12.2 seconds behind the winner Vladimir Kuts, but two weeks later turned the tables at a London v. Moscow athletics competition at"
"next seven runners all under the old record. Bannister finished fourth, out of the medals, but set a British record of 3:46.30 (3:46.0) in the process. After his relative failure at the 1952 Olympics, Bannister spent two months deciding whether to give up running. He set himself on a new goal: to be the first man to run a mile in under four minutes. Accordingly, he intensified his training and did hard intervals. On 2 May 1953, he made an attempt on the British record at Oxford. Paced by Chris Chataway, Bannister ran 4:03.6, shattering Wooderson's 1945 standard. ""This race"
"decade. The act of completing a sub-four-minute mile sparked further interest in the distance in the 1950s. Englishman Roger Bannister became the first person to achieve the feat in May 1954 and his effort, conducted with the help of Chris Brasher and Chris Chataway, was a key moment in the rise of the use of pacemakers at the top level of the sport – an aspect which is now commonplace at non-championship middle and long-distance races. The 1960s saw American Jim Ryun set world records near the 3:50-minute mark and his achievements popularised interval workout techniques. From this period onwards,"
"Four-minute mile In the sport of athletics, a four-minute mile means completing a mile run (1,760 yards, or 1,609.344 metres) in less than four minutes. It was first achieved in 1954 by Roger Bannister in 3:59.4. The ""four-minute barrier"" has since been broken by over 1,400 male athletes, and is now the standard of all male professional middle distance runners. In the 64 years since, the mile record has been lowered by almost 17 seconds, and currently stands at 3:43.13. Running a mile in four minutes translates to a speed of 15 miles per hour (24.14 km/h, or 2:29.13 per"
"mark. Over 18 years after Coghlan, that was finally achieved by UK's Anthony Whiteman, running 3:58.79 on 2 June 2012. No woman has yet run a four-minute mile. , the women's world record is held by retired Russian Svetlana Masterkova, with a time of 4:12.56 in 1996. In 1997, Daniel Komen of Kenya ran two miles in less than eight minutes, doubling up on Bannister's accomplishment. He did it again in February 1998, falling just 0.3 seconds behind his previous performance of 7:58.61. He is still the only individual to accomplish the feat. The youngest runner to ever run a"
"made me realise that the four-minute mile was not out of reach,"" said Bannister. On 27 June, a mile race was inserted into the programme of the Surrey schools athletic meeting. Australian runner Don Macmillan, ninth in the 1500 m at the 1952 Olympics, set a strong pace with 59.6 for one lap and 1:59.7 for two. He gave up after two and a half laps, but Chris Brasher took up the pace. Brasher had jogged the race, allowing Bannister to lap him so he could be a fresh pace-setter. At mile, Bannister was at 3:01.8, the record—and first sub-four-minute"
"a two-mile race behind Sándor Iharos both breaking the world two mile outdoor record. Woods time being 8:34.8. He became the fourteenth athlete (the fifth from the UK) to officially run a Four-minute mile, achieving a time of 3:59.3 on 19 July 1957. He in fact finished fourth behind Derek Ibbotson, who set a new British record, Ron Delany and Stanislav Jungwirth. On the 50th anniversary of Roger Bannister's first Four-minute mile, Wood claimed he had previously run under four minutes on 7 April 1954. Wood died in September 2008. Ken Wood (athlete) Kenneth Wood (21 November 1930 - 8"
"set himself the target of breaking the four-minute mile barrier. At the time Bannister was a 25-year-old full-time medical student at St Mary's Hospital Medical School. He could only train for 45 minutes a day for the event. The opportunity to break the record came on 6 May 1954, when Bannister was competing in an event for the Amateur Athletic Association against Oxford University. Bannister was going to withdraw from the race because of the gusting wind, however, just before the race, the wind dropped and Bannister decided to compete. He arranged for Christopher Chataway and Chris Brasher to be"
"difficult achievement, long thought impossible by the scientific community. The first man to break the four-minute barrier was Englishman Roger Bannister at Oxford in 1954. The current record holders are Hicham El Guerrouj (Morocco) (3:43.13, Rome, 7 July 1999) and Svetlana Masterkova (Russia) (4:12.56, Zürich, 14 August 1996). Another event that is rarely run, a miler's speed will generally allow him/her to prevail at this distance over less balanced challengers. Hicham El Guerrouj (Morocco) (4:44.79, Berlin, 7 September 1999) and Sonia O'Sullivan (Ireland) (5:25.36, Edinburgh, 8 July 1994) are currently the fastest at this distance outdoors. On February 7, 2017,"
"longer than it might otherwise have been due to the effect of the Second World War in interrupting athletic progress in the combatant countries. The Swedish runners, Gunder Hägg and Arne Andersson, in a series of head-to-head races in the period 1942–45, had already lowered the world mile record by five seconds to the pre-Bannister record. Knowledgeable track fans are still most impressed by the fact that Bannister ran a four-minute mile on very low-mileage training by modern standards. Just 46 days later, on 21 June 1954, Bannister's record was broken by his rival Landy in Turku, Finland, with a"
"sub-four-minute mile was run at the Iffley Road track in Oxford, England, where he was the second man to break four minutes. Twenty-four years earlier, on the same track, Roger Bannister's legendary run shattered the four-minute barrier for the first time in history. Masback became U.S. Indoor champion in the mile run in 1980.[3] He finished third twice in the 1500 meters at the English Championships, the AAA Championships, in 1978 and 1981. His best 1500 meter time was 3:35.28, recorded in Lausanne, Swtizerland in 1982. That same year Masback established an American record of 5:00.11 in the 2000 meters"
"spectators was too high. The Roger Bannister running track is part of the Iffley Road Sports Complex, which in turn is part of Oxford University Sport. Oxford University Sport also runs the Marston Road Sports Grounds, the University Parks Sports Grounds and the University Sports Centre. Roger Bannister running track The Roger Bannister running track, also known as the Oxford University track, is a 400-metres athletics running track and stadium in Oxford, England. It was where Sir Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile on 6 May 1954, when it was known as the Iffley Road track. The track is owned"
"announcement of Bannister's race time for as long as possible: The roar of the crowd drowned out the rest of the announcement. Bannister's time was 3 minutes 59.4 seconds. The claim that a four-minute mile was once thought to be impossible by ""informed"" observers was and is a widely propagated myth created by sportswriters and debunked by Bannister himself in his memoir, ""The Four Minute Mile"" (1955). The reason the myth took hold was that four minutes was a round number that lay slightly out of reach of the world record (by just 1.4 seconds) for nine years, which was"
"the sport of mile racing. A second film version (entitled ""Four Minutes"") was made in 2005, starring Jamie Maclachlan as Bannister. In June 2011 the watch used to time the original event was donated by Jeffrey Archer to a charity auction for Oxford University Athletics Club; it sold for £97,250. In July 2016 the BBC broadcast the documentary ""Bannister: Everest on the Track, The Roger Bannister Story"" with firsthand interviews from Bannister and various other figures on the first sub-4 minute mile. Four-minute mile In the sport of athletics, a four-minute mile means completing a mile run (1,760 yards, or"
"Roger Bannister running track The Roger Bannister running track, also known as the Oxford University track, is a 400-metres athletics running track and stadium in Oxford, England. It was where Sir Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile on 6 May 1954, when it was known as the Iffley Road track. The track is owned and operated by the University of Oxford. In 1867, the University of Oxford built a grass track round at Marston Road Sports Grounds. It was built on clay and often flooded, or became unusable due to the wet conditions. The university later decided to build a"
"time of 3 minutes 57.9 seconds, which the IAAF ratified as 3 minutes 58.0 seconds due to the rounding rules then in effect. On 7 August, at the 1954 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Vancouver, B.C., Bannister, running for England, competed against Landy for the first time in a race billed as ""The Miracle Mile"". They were the only two men in the world to have broken the 4-minute barrier, with Landy still holding the world record. Landy led for most of the race, building a lead of 10 yards in the third lap (of four), but was overtaken"
"runner during his college years, joining the Geelong Guild Athletic Club in 1949; he was a member of the Australian Olympic team at both the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki and 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, taking the Olympic Oath at the 1956 Olympics. On 21 June 1954, at an international meet at Turku, Finland, Landy became the second man, after Roger Bannister, to achieve a sub-4-minute mile, recording a world record time of 3:57.9, ratified by the IAAF as 3:58.0 owing to the rounding rules then in effect. That record held for more than three years. Worldwide, Landy is"
"Coincidentally, it was only 23 days since Roger Bannister had become the first man to run a sub 4-minute mile, 100 km away. In 1955, Leather broke the mile record by a further 15 seconds, achieving her personal best of 4:45. This remained the world record for seven years until New Zealand's Marise Chamberlain ran 4:41.4 in 1962. Leather won two European Championship silver medals at 800 metres: at the 1954 event in Bern, she was second behind the Soviet Union's Nina Otkalenko in 2:09.8, while at the 1958 event in Stockholm, she was second to another Soviet, Yelizaveta Yermolayeva,"
"ever recorded in a race: 3:59.30. Another illustration of the progression of performance in the men's mile is that, in 1994, forty years after Bannister's breaking of the barrier, the Irish runner Eamonn Coghlan became the first man over the age of 40 to run a sub-four-minute mile. Because Coghlan surpassed the mark indoors and before the IAAF validated indoor performances as being eligible for outdoor records, World Masters Athletics still had not recognised a sub-4-minute-mile performance as a record in the M40 division. Many elite athletes made the attempts to extend their careers beyond age 40 to challenge that"
"2013 he was awarded the Englishman of the Year award at the St George's Day Club Luncheon held at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London Bill Nankeville George William ""Bill"" Nankeville (born 24 March 1925) is a British national champion mile runner and won the AAA mile title four times in five years between 1948 and 1952, his best recorded time was 4:08.8 set in 1949. Roger Bannister interrupted his run of success in 1951. He was born in Guildford, Surrey; His father was a milkman. Nankeville, Don Seaman, Roger Bannister and Chris Chataway set a world record time of"
"several races. Wooderson lost to Andersson but set a British record of 4:04.2 in Gothenburg on 9 September. Like Wooderson, Bannister would ultimately set a mile record, see it broken, and then set a new personal best slower than the new record. Bannister started his running career at Oxford in the autumn of 1946 at the age of 17. He had never worn running spikes previously or run on a track. His training was light, even compared to the standards of the day, but he showed promise in running a mile in 1947 in 4:24.6 on only three weekly half-hour"
"Church, Tibshelf. On the fiftieth anniversary of his run, a one mile stretch of the Five Pits Trail was designed as the 'Tom Hulatt Mile' identified by two marker stones, with inscribed plaques, in coal measures sandstone donated by the National Trust. Tom Hulatt William Thomas ""Tom"" Hulatt (7 September 1930 – 21 May 1990) was an English athlete notable for finishing third behind Sir Christopher Chataway in the historic race in which Sir Roger Bannister ran the first sub-four-minute mile on 6 May 1954. He was from a working-class family and the only runner in the race who was"
"Four, the one mile, the winner was R. G. Bannister of Exeter and Merton colleges, in a time which, subject to ratification, is a track record, an English native record, a United Kingdom record, a European record, in a time of three minutes... at which the rest of McWhirter's announcement was drowned out in the enthusiastic uproar. One of the athletes covered was runner Christopher Chataway, the employee at Guinness who recommended them to Sir Hugh Beaver. After an interview in which the Guinness directors enjoyed testing the twins' knowledge of records and unusual facts, the brothers agreed to start"
"2011, Bannister was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. He died on 3 March 2018 at the age of 88 in Oxford. On the 50th anniversary of running the mile in under four minutes, Bannister was interviewed by the BBC's sports correspondent Rob Bonnet. At the conclusion of the interview, Bannister was asked whether he looked back on the sub-4-minute mile as the most important achievement of his life. Bannister replied that he instead saw his subsequent forty years of practising medicine and some of the new procedures he introduced as being more significant. He also said that, in terms of athletic"
"drowned out Bannister's exact time, which was 3 minutes and 59.4 seconds. He had attained this record with minimal training, while practising as a junior doctor. Bannister's record lasted just 46 days. Bannister went on to become a distinguished neurologist and Master of Pembroke College, Oxford, before retiring in 1993. When asked whether the 4-minute mile was his proudest achievement, he said he felt prouder of his contribution to academic medicine through research into the responses of the nervous system. Bannister was patron of the MSA Trust. He was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2011. Bannister was born in Harrow,"
"Landy looking over his left shoulder, just as Bannister is passing him on the right. Landy thus lost the race. The statue was placed in front of the Pacific National Exhibition entrance plaza. New Zealand's John Walker, who with a 3:49.4 performance in August 1975 became the first man to run the mile under 3:50, ran 135 sub-four-minute miles during his career (during which he was the first person to run over 100 sub-four-minute miles), and American Steve Scott has run the most sub-four-minute miles, with 136. Algeria's Noureddine Morceli was the first under 3:45. Currently, the mile record is"
"In 1951, they published ""Get to Your Marks"" and that year they founded an agency to provide facts and figures to Fleet Street, setting out, in Norris McWhirter's words: ""to supply facts and figures to newspapers, yearbooks, encyclopedias, and advertisers"". At the same time, he became a founding member of the Association of Track and Field Statisticians. McWhirter came to public attention while working for the BBC as a sports commentator. On 6 May 1954, he kept the time when Roger Bannister ran the first sub four-minute mile. After the race, he began his announcement: As a result of Event"
"a medley relay). The men's mile run competition – dubbed ""The Miracle Mile"" – represented a landmark in the history of the Four-minute mile. Roger Bannister had been the first to have broken the barrier earlier that year, but Landy followed soon after with sub-4 minute (and world record time) of his own. The games offered the first time that two sub-4 minute runners had duelled against each other. Landy led until the final curve, at which point he turned to gauge Bannister's position. Bannister took the opportunity to overtake him on his blind side and he edged out a"
"mile—in reach. But the effort fell short with a finish in 4:02.0, a time bettered by only Andersson and Hägg. British officials would not allow this performance to stand as a British record, which, Bannister felt in retrospect, was a good decision. ""My feeling as I look back is one of great relief that I did not run a four-minute mile under such artificial circumstances,"" he said. But other runners were making attempts at the four-minute barrier and coming close as well. American Wes Santee ran 4:02.4 on 5 June, the fourth-fastest mile ever. And at the end of the"