However, the publication reversed the decision after criticism from readers, who still deemed the four-minute mile an accomplishment worth recognizing. Today, the four-minute mile is still recognized as a notable achievement for male runners, though the frequency with which athletes break the barrier has become a topic of contention.Įarlier this year, Track and Field News magazine announced it would no longer update its list of Americans to break four minutes in the mile, explaining in a statement how advances in shoe technology “bombarded the 4:00 barrier into something no longer relevant for tracking.” “It became this almost Western, country battle to see who could get there first.” “This kind of combination of factors I think came together and made it this mythical undertaking,” author and performance coach Steve Magness tells CNN Sport. Wes Santee, seen here competing in a three-mile cross-country race, came close to running a sub-four-minute mile during his career. The four-minute mile captured the imagination of the general public partly because it was easily quantifiable – four laps of a running track, each lap run in under a minute – but also because of the appetite for discovery at the time of Bannister’s record.Įdmund Hilary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay had become the first people to summit the world’s highest peak the year before, and the first four-minute mile duly became running’s own Everest summit, expanding perceptions of human potential.Īs well as Bannister and Landy, American Wes Santee was also bidding to break four minutes at the same time, though he fell short of the mark on several occasions throughout his career. “Back then, getting under that four-minute mile was a big thing, especially for milers,” he added. Wottle was the 39th American man to break four minutes in the mile, an achievement he ranks on par with equaling the 800-meter world record and winning Olympic gold. “It was just something that takes you right to the core of how important it was.” “I was on cloud nine for two weeks … I remember I’d be sitting in the car driving and I’d get this big smile just thinking about that sub-four-minute mile,” former American track runner Dave Wottle, who first dipped under four minutes in 1970, told CNN Sport last year. Norman Potter/Hulton Archive/Getty Images In the years that followed, male athletes treated their first sub-four-minute mile as a watershed moment – a rite of passage on the way to becoming a top middle-distance runner.īannister crosses the finish line and breaks the four-minute-mile barrier for the first time. The achievement, thought by some at the time to be impossible, had been dubbed running’s Everest in the years leading up to that day in 1954, though it didn’t take long for the record to be lowered even more.Īustralian John Landy, one of Bannister’s rivals also gunning to break the four-minute barrier, took more than a second off the Briton’s time in Turku, Finland, a few weeks later.īut it’s Bannister’s landmark record that remains history’s most famous mile effort. It was 69 years ago on Saturday that Bannister became the first man ever to run a mile inside four minutes, gaining sporting immortality in three minutes, 59.4 seconds at Iffley Road track in Oxford, England. To Roger Bannister, the final few seconds felt like they would never end, pain overwhelming his body as he lurched towards the finish line.īut when he did break the tape, gratefully falling into the arms of bystanders shortly after, the famed middle-distance runner knew immediately what he had achieved.Īs Bannister gasped for breath, the announcer tasked with declaring the finishing time got as a far as “three …” before the noise of the crowd drowned out the rest, for the exact time now seemed irrelevant.
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