EILEEN BATTERSBYponders Roger Bannister and Sebastian Coe
ONE DAMP, WINDY evening 58 years ago tomorrow, May 6th 1954, an Oxford University medical student ran his way into history by running the world’s first sub-four-minute mile; 3:59.4. Roger Bannister was then an intern at a West London hospital. Hours before the race, he had stood in the hospital laboratory sharpening the spikes on the soles of his running shoes. Nowadays, athletes wear very different shoes. But it was a very different time. Two years earlier, Bannister had finished fourth in the 1,500m or metric mile at the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki. Impressive for someone whose training sessions lasted 30 minutes and ran better off two races, the semi-final had drained him.
Bannister was just 6 feet 2 inches, well built and almost good looking. His approach to running was intellectual. The appeal of the mile for him lay, as he once told me, in “the beauty, the symmetry, the logic of it”. His achievement remains greater than an Olympic gold medal, because he was the first. Pacemakers Chris Brasher and Chris Chataway set it up and 300m from the finish Bannister surged ahead. He hit a white string finishing line, not an electronic beam.
Chief timekeeper was Harold Abrahams, the 1924 Olympic 100m champion whose career would inspire the movie Chariots of Fire (1981). Bannister’s record stood until June 21st when his rival Australian John Landy, a front runner and an obsessive, quasi-professional athlete who trained twice a day, posted 3:58.0.When the two met in the Empire Games mile final in July, Bannister won. Later that same 1954 season, Bannister also won the European 1,500m title and retired from competition.
Bannister, now 83, went on to become a neurologist, a master of Pembroke College Oxford, chairman of the British Sports Council and pioneered drug testing in sport. His world record has been bettered by 13 athletes, including four other Englishmen, most notably, Sebastian Coe, Mr London Olympics. In common with Bannister, Coe had a cool, analytical approach. Some five inches shorter, Coe, physically frail but a beautifully balanced runner, always looked a boy amongst men. He broke the world mile record three times, while his world 800m record stood for 16 years. If Bannister needed an heir, Coe, more than graced the mantle.
Coe set eight world outdoor records and three world indoor records spanning 800m, 1,000m, 1,500m and the mile. A quarter of a century after Bannister, Coe set his first world mile record, 3:48.95, in Oslo during a 41-day reign of terror in which he set world records over 800m, 1,500m and the mile. In 1981, Coe set world mile records in Zurich and again in Brussels, achieving 3:47.33. The only man to win the Olympic 1,500m twice, he is unique.
Morocco’s Hicham El Guerrouj’s 3:43.13 mark was set in 1999. Yet it was Bannister who first broke the barrier, while Coe introduced an element of tenacious artistry that will linger.