Roger Bannister

“The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win.” – Roger Bannister

It was once called the Mount Everest of Track and Field. The challenge of running a mile (approximately 1.6km) under four minutes seemed impossible. When one man went past that barrier, many more athletes joined the “sub-4-minute club”. How did the first man do? How come many other people joined him afterwards?

From as early as 1886, runners were trying to conquer this challenge. Top athletes and coaches from the UK, USA, Australia and other countries were involved in this contest. Although the mile was not an Olympic event, many countries had one-mile races.

After many attempts, the record was getting closer and closer to the 4-minute mark. By 1942, Gunder Hägg set a new world record of 4:06.2. Until 1945 Hägg and Arne Andersson dedicatedly competed for the record, beating it for a handful of times. 4:01.4 was the last record held by Gunder Hägg. This one stood for almost nine years.

Surely World War II played a role in the halt of the mile run world record. Sweden had a neutral position at that time whereas in countries involved in the war, running progress stalled. Later, in the 1950s there were three main candidates to break the 4-minute barrier: Roger Bannister, John Landy and Wes Santee. They were from England, Australia and the USA, respectively.

Bannister was a medicine student who had unconventional training methods. He only had one hour per day to train due to his studies. The English athlete expected to attain the gold medal at the 1952 Olympics in the 1500 metres run and retire. However, he finished only in 4th. Thus, Bannister set himself the goal to become the first man to run a mile in less than 4 minutes. Doing this would also justify his training methods.

In 1953, Bannister beat the British mile record with a 4:03.6. Then Wes Santee ran the mile in 4:02.4. Later in the same year, Landy ran 4:02.0. The Australian runner still tried twice more in 1954, but he didn’t improve his record. Bear in mind, at this time, the media were either saying that running a mile under 4 minutes was impossible or it needed to be in perfect weather and track conditions.

On May 6th, 1954, there was a meeting in which Lannister was about to try and smash the world record. Although weather conditions started terribly that day, it improved towards the evening. Two of his colleagues combined to set the pace for the first laps to help Bannister. They had to complete four laps and in each one, they would hear what time they were doing.

First lap, 58 seconds. Second lap, 1:58. Third lap, 3:01. The final bell ringed and Bannister realised he had to bring the pace up again if he was to accomplish his goal. He took the lead, tried his very best almost collapsing by the end of the race. A 3:59.4 made the crowd cheer and relieved Roger Bannister.

Just 46 days later, John Landy broke the world record again by one second and a half. As time went by it turned out it was not such an insurmountable feat to run a mile under 4 minutes. The long-standing record by the Swedish athlete just above 4 minutes, the stories told by the media and the World War combined had created a mental hurdle for the runners.

It took a few bold athletes competing against each other to break this barrier once and for all. This story proves a point. Sometimes we think something is impossible just because it hasn’t been done yet, or public opinion says it is impossible. However, if we believed or tried differently, we could do it. Let this be a lesson for all of us who desire to tap into uncharted territories.

“However ordinary each of us may seem, we are all in some way special, and can do things that are extraordinary, perhaps until then…even thought impossible.” – Roger Bannister

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