May 6, 1954: Roger Bannister Breaks the 4-Minute Mile

May 6, 1954, 70 years ago: Roger Bannister becomes the 1st competitive runner to run a mile race in less than 4 minutes.

Roger Gilbert Bannister was born on March 23, 1929, in Harrow, West London. He went to University College School in his hometown, and medical school at the University of Oxford and at St. Mary's Hospital Medical School, which is now part of Imperial College London.

He was 8 years old on August 28, 1937, when fellow Englishman Sydney Wooderson ran a mile in 4 minutes, 6.4 seconds at Motspur Park in London. This was a world record. On July 1, 1942, the record was reduced to 4:06.2 by Swedish runner Gunder Hägg, who then began alternating holding the record with another Swede, Arne Andersson. (Sweden was neutral during World War II, and thus its best athletes were not off fighting.) On July 17, 1945, between V-E Day and V-J Day, Hägg reduced the record to 4:01.4.

After The War, Wooderson challenged the Swedes to match races, and he usually beat them, eventually setting a personal best and a British record -- but not breaking the world record. They inspired Bannister, and when he arrived at Oxford in 1946, he began running on their Iffley Road Track.

He began training for the 1948 Olympic Games -- the Olympics use not the mile run but the 1,500 meters, a.k.a. "the metric mile" -- to be held in his hometown of London, but he believed he wasn't ready. He may have been right: While he did run in the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, Finland, he finished 4th in the 1,500, but he did set a British record. The race was won by Josy Barthel of Luxembourg. Bannister had reduced his mile time to 4:08.3 at the 1951 Penn Relays in Philadelphia, his 1st visit to America. (The University of Pennsylvania's Franklin Field is right next to their medical school and hospital, so I hope he visited.)

The mile record was still Hägg's 4:01.4 in 1945. A mile is 1,609 meters, so it was a shade over 4 laps around a traditional 400-meter track. It was a nice round number, a perfect match: 4 laps, 4 minutes, 1 minute per lap on the average. If, one day, someone runs a mile in under 3 minutes, as amazing as that would be, it wouldn't have the same impact -- just as the 1st Earth person's walk on the planet Mars will never be as celebrated as the 1st such walk on the Moon was in 1969.

And in the early 1950s, there were people who believed that a sub-4-minute mile was not physically possible. It wasn't just that Hägg's record still stood. There was a myth that there were those who believed that any man who broke it would die in so doing. Bannister, as a medical student, knew that such an occurrence was unlikely. In fact, as Bannister said in the memoir he published a year after the feat, he said that there was no such widely-held belief.

On May 2, 1953, at Iffley Road, he ran a mile in 4:03.6, setting a new British record. Now, he was sure: "This race made me realize that the 4-minute mile was not out of reach." On June 27, in Surrey, he ran a mile in 4:02.0. Now, in all of human history to that point, only Hägg and Andersson had been timed in a mile run faster.

But, as with the Wright Brothers trying for the 1st heavier-than-air flight, and Charles Lindbergh for the 1st nonstop flight between the United States and the European continent, the efforts of others were rendering time to be of the essence. Also in 1953, American runner Wes Santee ran a mile in 4:02.4, and Australian runner John Landy matched Bannister at 4:02.0. On January 21, 1954, Landy ran 4:02.4. On April 19, he ran 4:02.4 again. Still not sub-four, and still not even beating the existing record, but a threat to them, and to Bannister's ambition, nonetheless.

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It was May 6, 1954. Dwight D. Eisenhower was President of the United States. Winston Churchill was in his last months as Prime Minister of Britain, and Queen Elizabeth II had been monarch for a little over 2 years, and was just 28 years old. Edmund Hillary had become the 1st man to reach the summit of the world's highest mountain, Mount Everest in Nepal, a little less than a year earlier. Decades later, Sports Illustrated would do a joint feature on Hillary and Bannister.

Britain had just 1 TV network, the BBC; America had 3, NBC, CBS and DuMont, with ABC preparing to launch and essentially replace DuMont. Color televisions were few and far between. Rock and roll was just getting started. Cordless telephones, never mind mobile ones, were out of the question. Computers took up entire sides of buildings. The Subway fare in New York had gone up to 15 cents the year before.

About 1,200 people gathered for a meet between Oxford University runners and the British AAA (Amateur Athletic Association), at the Iffley Road Track, not a bad crowd for a Thursday early evening, with the meet broadcast live on BBC Radio (not on television), and iffy weather.

How iffy was it? It was damp, and the wind was measured at 25 miles per hour -- meaning that, if sub-four was done with that much wind, it wouldn't be counted as a world record by the governing body of world track & field, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF). With this in mind, Bannister thought that trying for the record would be a waste, and he'd try at a later meet. But he was kept in the lineup, and shortly before the race was to begin, the wind stopped. Any record(s) set at the meet, in any event, would count.

Bannister, now 25 years old, would run, wearing Number 41 (well before baseball pitcher Tom Seaver became identified with the number), for the AAA team. He was no longer eligible to run for Oxford, because he had since gotten his degree, and had actually had to take a train from London's Paddington Station to Oxford to get to the meet.

Six men ran. For the AAA team: Bannister, Chris Chataway, Chris Brasher and Tom Hulatt. For Oxford: Alan Gordon and George Dole. Nigel Miller arrived at the match, and only found out that he was due to run when he read the meet program. He didn't have a uniform with him, and couldn't find one, and had to drop out. Would the record have happened if there'd been 7 men racing instead of 6? We'll never know.

At 6:00 PM -- 1:00 in the afternoon, New York time -- the starter fired his pistol. After 1 lap, Brasher led, with a time of 57.5 seconds. The pace was on. After 2 laps, Brasher still led, with a time of 1 minute and 58 seconds. The pace was still on. Chataway took the lead, and at the end of the 3rd lap, he led with a time of 3 minutes and 0.7 seconds. The pace was no longer on.

Bannister took the lead with about 300 yards, about half a lap, to go. With about 275 yards to go, he went into his finishing kick. He took the lead, and broke the tape. He had won, beyond any doubt, but that was secondary to his real goal. Did he break the record? Did he break the barrier?

The meet announcer was Norris McWhirter. The next year, with his twin brother Ross, he would, appropriately enough, begin publishing The Guinness Book of World Records. And this is what he said:

Ladies and gentlemen, here is the result of event nine, the one mile: First, Number 41, R.G. Bannister, Amateur Athletic Association, and formerly of Exeter and Merton Colleges, Oxford, with a time which is a new meeting and track record, and which, subject to ratification, will be a new English Native, British National, British All-Comers, European, British Empire and World Record. The time was three...

Nobody heard the rest of it, because they roared in approval and drowned it out. The nice round number of 4 minutes even, the barrier thought impenetrable, had been broken. The time was 3 minutes, 59.4 seconds. Bannister had lowered the 9-year-old world record by 2 seconds, or about 0.8 percent. The times of his laps: 57.5 seconds, 1 minute and 0.5 seconds, 1 minute and 2.7 seconds, 58.4 seconds.

And since it was broadcast on the BBC, the world knew about it quickly. Special editions of newspapers were published all over the world. It was done in plenty of time to make the evening papers in North America.

As I said, it was not broadcast on television, but it was filmed, so you can watch it happen, with Bannister's own voiceover.

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The record didn't stand long. Just 46 days. Indeed, despite his monumental achievement, no one has ever officially held the record for the mile for a shorter time. On June 21, 1954, John Landy ran in a meet in Turku, Finland, and reduced the record from 3:59.4 to 3:57.9 -- a second and a half less.

The Empire Games -- the British mini-Olympics, now known as the Commonwealth Games -- were coming up, and a mile race between Bannister and Landy had to happen. It was the running equivalent of the Heavyweight Championship of the World. It was called The Mile of the Century and The Miracle Mile.

The site was the new Empire Stadium in Vancouver. The date was August 7, 1954. A much larger crowd came out: 35,000. Bannister competed for England (not "Great Britain"), Landy for Australia. They were then the only 2 men ever to run a mile in under 4 minutes, and Landy held the record.

In the 3rd lap, Landy had a 10-yard lead. But Bannister caught up, and, on the final turn, Landy made a critical mistake: He turned his head to his left, to see how far behind Bannister was. In fact, Bannister was on his right, and was thus able to pass Landy and win the race. The time was 3:58.8 -- a new personal best for Bannister, but short of Landy's record.

In 1967, a statue of the men would be dedicated at Empire Stadium. Landy said, "While Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt for looking back, I am probably the only one ever turned into bronze for looking back." Empire Stadium has been demolished, to make way for new athletic facilities. The statue now stands at the Pacific National Exhibition, which includes the Pacific Coliseum, the former home of the NHL's Vancouver Canucks.

On February 10, 1962, Jim Beatty, a New Yorker running in the Los Angeles Invitational at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena, became the 1st person, from any country, to run a mile in under 4 minutes indoors: 3:58.9. It was broadcast live on ABC Wide World of Sports, and it was considered a big coup for ABC Sports, as well as for Beatty.

On July 7, 1999, Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco won a mile race in 3:43.13 at Rome, Italy. As of May 6, 2024, this record still stands. The women's record in the mile currently stands at 4:07.64, set by Faith Kipyeogon of Kenya, at Monte Carlo, Monaco on July 21, 2023.