9/11/2023 0 Comments Roger bannister dies![]() Then 210 metres from the tape he pulled out from behind Chataway to immortalise himself as the first sub-four-minute miler. Bannister urged Brasher to go faster and at the halfway mark called on Chataway to take over from the tiring Brasher. Bannister thought of calling it off but after a short rain shower and with a drop in the wind, he said: "Right, I'll try."Īfter a false start by pacemaker Brasher, the field of six got away. May 6 was cold, wet and windy - not ideal for a record-breaking attempt. He enlisted the aid of his training companions and friends Chris Chataway and Chris Brasher, top athletes in their own right, as pacemakers. Bannister, by then a medical student at a London hospital, set that day for his attempt. The Oxford University versus Amateur Athletics Association fixture of May 6 was the first competition of the British season of 1954. To Bannister, the challenge was not only to break the barrier but to be the first man to do so. record of four minutes 2.4 seconds, the pressure was on and four-minute-mile fever was mounting. ![]() With American Wes Santee trying to lower his U.S. The world record was gradually being whittled down and a number of athletes were considered capable of crashing the four-minute barrier.Īustralia's great miler, John Landy, recorded a four minutes 2.1 seconds mile in December 1952 and Bannister cut this to four minutes two seconds in June 1953. But he had set his sights on the four-minute-mile - a challenge which had fascinated athletes and enthusiasts for years. Bannister, nicknamed the "lone wolf miler" because he scorned coaches, had worked out his own training schedule to fit in with his studies.Īfter Helsinki he became the forgotten man of athletics. The press criticised him for faulty training methods. But he managed only fourth place in the Helsinki Games 1,500 metres final. He asked for his name to be withdrawn from a list of 1948 Olympic possibles and continued his careful preparations for the 1952 games. Later that year he won the mile for Oxford against Cambridge in an athletics meeting. ![]() So he turned to running and his new ambition became to win the 1,500 metres at the Olympic Games in Helsinki in 1952.īannister started a five-year build-up and in 1947 at the age of 17 at Oxford ran his first mile race, finishing second in a time of just over five minutes. In 1946, when he went to Oxford, his great ambition was to row against Cambridge in the annual boat race on the Thames.īut Bannister, who stood 1.8 metres tall and weighed only 68 kilograms, was told he was too light to make a first-rate oarsman.
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