On May 6, 1954, just under one year after New
Zealand climber Edmund Hillary and Nepalese mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first
humans to reach the top of Mount Everest, another seemingly insurmountable barrier was
crossed- a human being ran the mile in less than four minutes. The man who did it was
25-year-old British medical student Roger Bannister, finishing with a time of 3:59.4.
This not only sent the cheering fans in Oxford’s Iffley Stadium into hysterics, but shook the
track and field world.
At the time, the previous record of 4:01.4, set by Sweden’s Gunder Haag, had stood for
nine years despite a considerable number of attempts to break it. This ultimately resulted
in somewhat outlandish speculation by various contemporary sports writers that finishing
under four minutes in the mile was simply physiologically impossible for a human- a
notion the runners themselves thought absurd. As one of Bannister’s chief competitors
in the quest for the four minute mile, John Landy, noted, “It was simply a barrier in
terms of conditioning by runners at that time, the track conditions, and the competition.”
That said, he did note that, “The four-minute mile had become the Mount Everest of track
and field.”
While the Olympic quest to go faster, higher and stronger has long driven athletes to do
just that, the Olympics themselves have never been a place to break the four minute mile
as this event goes by metric distances. (See: The Evolution of the Metre) The closest event
in the Games, the 1500 meter, is only 93.3% of the full 1609.4 meter equivalent of a mile.
However, it was the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki that Bannister and his two chief rivals, American
Wes Santee and the aforementioned Australian John Landy, suffered defeats humiliating enough
to seek redemption through chasing the mark.
Bannister was a man who took pride in his own training methods — with theories on
everything from oxygen consumption to evenness of splits –as well as maintaining a balance
between running and the rest of his life. However, Bannister was planning on dropping
running after the 1952 Games to focus on his chosen career as a physician. But when he
finished 4th in Helsinki, he invoked the wrath of the British press who scapegoated his independent-minded
training ideas as the reason the Brits did so poorly in the track events. Feeling he
had something to prove, the medical student changed his mind and doubled down on running.
landyAnother runner at the 1952 Olympics, Australian John Landy, left the track in disappointment
after failing to qualify for the finals. However, Landy left the meet with a dose of inspiration
from the era’s dominant distance runner “the Czech Locomotive” Emil Zátopek.
Zátopek won Gold at those Games in the 5,000 meter, 10,000 meter and the marathon (the
latter being the first he’d ever competed in, entering on a whim at the last minute).
One of Landy’s teammates ran three miles to the closed off Soviet Olympic village and
slipped past the guards just to seek counsel with Zátopek.
Regaled with stories from his teammate, Landy joined the entourage of admirers that followed
Zátopek around as he warmed up and pontificated about his running regimen. What he learned
from Zátopek wasn’t running style and form, but that the key to success in running was
rigorous year-round training to build up endurance. This is something that’s exceedingly obvious
to anyone today, but at the time went very contrary to the popular idea that you should
train as little as possible when not gearing up for a race, even taking many months off
at times, thereby not putting too much stress on the body. Zátopek, on the other hand,
advocated continual intense interval training and felt the more you stressed the body the
better, so long as you let it heal up sufficiently between training sessions.
Using Zátopek’s training methods, within a few months of the 1952 Games, Landy managed
the fastest mile time since Gunder Haag set the record at 4:01.4 in 1945. Landy’s new
personal best was 4:02.1, cutting 9 seconds off his best time from before he changed his
training routine. Shortly after this, on January 3, 1953, he managed a pace of under 4 minutes
on the mile until the final 20 seconds, in which he ran out of gas, slowing considerably
and finishing at 4:02.8.
wes-santeeWes Santee, a University of Kansas sophomore who had been breaking American records
left and right, had an even bigger chip on his shoulder. The Amateur Athletic Union (AAU)
was the bane of his existence throughout his career, primarily concerning that he continually
drew truly massive crowds at the races he competed in, but was not allowed to earn money
from it. This was something the poor Kansas farm boy wasn’t shy about railing against,
even publicly, making him many enemies within the AAU.
In this first run-in with the AAU, however, the trouble was not about amateur athlete
exploitation, but in the AAU denying him entry into his best race, the 1,500 meter, at the
1952 Olympic Games. Their reason? He had already qualified in the 5K for the Olympics and they
didn’t think he could perform well in either if he competed in two events.
To keep him from running at the 1,500 meter Olympic trials, two AAU officials physically
pulled him off the starting line mere moments before the race. Shortly before the Games,
as something of a middle finger to the AAU, Santee raced the American 1,500 meter entrants,
Bill Ashenfelter and Warren Druetzler, in a 3/4 mile (1207 meter) competition and effortlessly
defeated them both.
At the Games themselves, Santee was alienated from the team over his conflict with the AAU
and was given little support from them for the race. To make matters worse, his college
coach had not been able to make the trip, leaving him on his own to vainly try to strategize
a race where he didn’t really know much of anything about any of the other competitors.
The result was one of his worst 5K times as an adult, ultimately finishing 13th at the
Games. Track & Field News stated that Santee inexplicably ran the 5K at the Games “like
a novice.” After the Olympics, Neal Bascomb noted in his book The Perfect Mile:
[Santee] wanted to prove what a big mistake it had been to prevent him from running in
the 1,500 meter, and more important, he wanted to show how good he really was. He set his
sights on a goal that had always been on the horizon for him: The four-minute mile.
Although Santee and Landy were not the first to break the four minute mile barrier, it
was the relentless improvement of their personal bests that pushed Bannister and his support
team to break the mark sooner than later out of fear that one of those two would conquer
the “Mount Everest of track and field” first.
In the months leading up to the record breaking race, despite Santee competing exceptionally
frequently compared to Landy and Bannister (sometimes even racing multiple times in a
single day in various events and frequently racing several times a week), he had nonetheless
reduced his personal best time in the mile to 4:02.4. At this point, he hoped to make
his big push for the sub-four minute mile after the college season ended that year and
he could properly rest for such a push.
As for Landy, he’d managed a personal best of 4:02.0 in the mile and several more times
in the 4:02.X range in early 1954.
With Santee nearly getting their despite his rigorous race schedule and Landy coming so
close so many times, Bannister, whose personal best at the time matched Landy’s 4:02.0,
knew if he were to be first, he’d have to pass the mark soon.
Leading up to the day of the fateful race, Bannister took five days off of running, though
did do some light hiking. When the run started, he later stated, “I can remember feeling
so full of running that on the first lap I called out to Chris Brasher, ‘Faster!’
In fact he did 57 seconds. There was nothing wrong with the pace.”
After the second lap, Chris Chataway took over pacing from Brasher, and continued through
about the half way point of the last lap. As Chataway tired and began to slow, Bannister
“unlock[ed] my finishing burst” and sprinted past him to the finish line. “I leapt at
the tape like a man taking his last spring to save himself from the chasm that threatens
to engulf him,” then gasped for breath as he slowed. He later stated, “I felt like
an exploded flashlight with no will to live.”
As the crowd and Bannister anxiously waited for his time to be read, the stadium announcer,
Norris McWhirter, finally spoke, dragging the suspense out as long as possible,
Ladies and gentlemen, here is the result of event nine, the one mile: first, number forty
one, 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, All-Comers, European, British Empire and World
Record. The time was three…
The roar of the crowd drowned out the rest of the digits. His time was 3:59.4.
A mere month later, Wes Santee would break the world record in the 1,500 meter with a
time of 3:42.8, then for good measure continued running in an attempt to become the second
person to cross the four minute mile barrier.
He failed, with a time of 4:00.6.
Less than a year later, peaking at 4:00.5 for the mile and holding three of the five
fastest mile times in the world at that point, he was temporarily banned by the Amateur Athletic
Union (AAU) for accepting money to race. According to the AAU, he had been given “at least
$1,200” (about $10,000 today) to cover his expenses for travel, food and lodging in three
races in May of 1955. At the time, the AAU only allowed the organizers of their races
to give $15 per race to the athletes, despite crowds that sometimes swelled into the tens
of thousands paying to watch Santee run.
Later, questions about Santee’s amateur status likewise saw him permanently banned
from AAU events and international competition. Because there was no professional running
organization at the time, after finishing up his tour with the Mariners shortly after
being banned, where he at least could still compete in their running events, he never
competed again, his personal best missing the four minute mile mark by a half a second.
Santee later bitterly noted of this, “The AAU says it is possible to get by on the expense
allowances permitted by their rules. My answer to that is, ‘Yes, if you want to become
an athletic bum.’”
He also mused about the fact that it was AAU officials who were the promoters who commonly
offered extra money to the best runners to come race at their events, including stating
that the then head of the AAU, Dan Ferris, had once paid him to race. He quipped of this,
“I always questioned how they could be the ones giving me the money and on the other
hand banning me for it.”
bannister_and_landyAs for Landy, just over two weeks after Santee’s 4:00.6 failed attempt
at a sub-4 minute mile, and 46 days after Bannister’s successful one, John Landy would
not just cross the four minute mile barrier, but shatter Bannister’s fresh world record
by 1.7 seconds, managing a time of 3:57.9 seconds (which was officially rounded by the
IAAF to 3 min 58.0 seconds) on June 21, 1954.
On August 7 of that same year, Landy and Bannister would go head to head at the 1954 British
Empire and Commonwealth Games in Vancouver, B.C. in one of the most anticipated races
of the day. In it, for the first time in history, two competitors both managed a sub-four minute
mile, with Landy finishing at 3:59.6 and Bannister at 3:58.8. Landy had led up to the last bend
before he decided to turn and look over his left shoulder to see where Banister was- an
opportunity Banister used to sneak past him on the other side.
Notably, about seven months later, Landy ran an incredible race of 4:02.0. Why is that
impressive? Because it included him stopping completely mid-race after he accidentally
spiked Ron Clarke on the arm when Clarke tripped and fell in front of him. Rather than continue
running, Landy stopped to make sure Clarke was alright, helped him up and apologized
for accidentally stepping on him with his spiked shoes.
landy_and_clarkeOnce back on his feet, Clarke urged Landy to continue the race, which he
did. The total time Landy was standing still was about 7 seconds. He finished with the
aforementioned time of 4:02.0, meaning he likely would have shattered his own world
record of 3:58.0 had he not stopped. (This is not unlike that time an Olympic rower stopped
to let some ducks swim by and still won the gold medal.)
After their respective racing careers were over, Bannister would be knighted and enjoyed
a distinguished career as a neurologist, his research in the latter, according to him,
being his proudest achievement in life, not the sub-four minute mile. Landy would pursue
a successful career in business before becoming Governor of the State of Victoria in Australia.
Santee would go on to own an insurance agency in Kansas, as well as give regular running
clinics to high school and college athletes.
And if you’re wondering, today, the current mile record is 3:43.13, held by Morocco’s
Hachim El Guerrouj, who set the record in 1999 and also holds seven of the ten fastest
times for the mile in history. Since then, no one has come close to surpassing that mark.
As for the so-called “metric mile” of 1500 meters, that record has stood at 3:26:00
since 1998, also held by Guerrouj,