Read: 'One of the greatest in sports history' - Coe and Cram lead tributesīannister viewed running as something to be done in his spare time away from the demands of his medical studies at the University of Oxford, but that did not prevent him reaching the biggest stages in the sport.Read: History-maker, doctor, anti-doping pioneer.Listen: Record Maker - Sir Roger Bannister speaks to Eleanor Oldroyd in 2012."There is not a single athlete of my generation who was not inspired by Roger and his achievements both on and off the track." IAAF president Lord Coe, who ran a mile world record of 3:47.33 in 1981, said: "This is a day of intense sadness both for our nation and for all of us in athletics. "He banked his treasure in the hearts of his friends." He was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2011.Ī statement from his family said: "Sir Roger Bannister, died peacefully in Oxford on 3 March, aged 88, surrounded by his family who were as loved by him, as he was loved by them. It was the first time two men had run under 4 minutes in the same race.Bannister also won gold over the same distance at the 1954 Commonwealth Games and later became a leading neurologist. "Around the last bend, I think the crowd was making so much noise he couldn't hear whether I was behind, or whether he'd dropped me, and he looked over his left shoulder, and I passed him on his right shoulder," Bannister said.īannister won the race in 3:58.8, with Landy second in 3:59. Landy set a fast pace, leading by as much as 15 yards before Bannister caught up as the bell rang for the final lap. That set the stage for the showdown between Bannister and Landy at the Empire Games, now called the Commonwealth Games, in Vancouver, British Columbia on Aug. The record lasted just 46 days, as Landy ran 3:57.9 in Turku, Finland, on June 21, 1954. I drove on, impelled by a combination of fear and pride."Īfter Bannister crossed the finish line, the announcer read out the time: "3." The rest was drowned out by the roar of the crowd. I felt at that moment that it was my chance to do one thing supremely well. The tape meant finality - extinction perhaps. "The only reality was the next 200 yards of track under my feet. "The world seemed to stand still, or did not exist," he wrote in his book, "The First Four Minutes." With 250 yards to go, Bannister surged past Chataway, his long arms and legs pumping and his lungs gasping for oxygen. Bannister would need to run the final lap in 59 seconds. Chris Chataway, a distance specialist, paced a third lap of 62.3 - 3:00.4. With Chris Brasher setting the pace on the cinder track, they ran a first lap in 57.5 seconds, then 60.7 - 1:58.2 for the half mile. But, shortly before 6 p.m., the wind died down. When Bannister looked up at the English flag whipping in the wind atop a nearby church, he feared he would have to call off the record attempt. His chance finally came on a wet, cool, blustery May afternoon during a meet between Oxford and the Amateur Athletic Association. Although I tried in 1953, I broke the British record, but not the 4-minute mile, and so everything was ready in 1954." Our new queen had been crowned the year before, Everest had been climbed in 1953. "I thought it would be right for Britain to try to get this," Bannister said. He also wanted to deliver something special for his country. "As it became clear that somebody was going to do it, I felt that I would prefer it to be me," Bannister told the AP. Swedish runner Gundar Haegg's mile time of 4:01.4 had stood for nine years, but in 1954 Bannister, Australian rival John Landy and others were threatening to break it. Instead of retiring from the sport, he decided to chase the 4-minute mark. He might not have set the milestone but for the disappointment of finishing without a medal in the 1,500 meters, known as the metric mile, in the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki. "I'd like to see it as a metaphor not only for sport, but for life and seeking challenges." "It became a symbol of attempting a challenge in the physical world of something hitherto thought impossible," Bannister said as he approached the 50th anniversary of the feat. The enduring image of the lanky Oxford medical student - head tilted back, eyes closed and mouth agape as he strained across the finishing tape - captured the public's imagination, made him a global celebrity and lifted the spirits of Britons still suffering through postwar austerity.
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