Editing Roger Bannister (section)

===Sub-4-minute mile===
{{See also|Four-minute mile}}
[[Roger Bannister running track#The sub-four-minute mile|This historic event]] took place on 6 May 1954 during a meet between [[British Amateur Athletics Association|British AAA]] and [[Oxford University]] at [[Roger Bannister running track|Iffley Road Track]] in [[Oxford]], watched by about 3,000 spectators.<ref name=":1" /> With winds of up to {{convert|25|mph|km/h|spell=in}} before the event,<ref name=":1" /> Bannister had said twice that he preferred not to run, to conserve his energy and efforts to break the 4-minute barrier; he would try again at another meet. However, the winds dropped just before the race was scheduled to begin, and Bannister did run.

The pace-setters from his major 1953 attempts, future [[1954 British Empire and Commonwealth Games|Commonwealth Games]] gold medallist [[Christopher Chataway]] from the 2 May attempt, and future [[1956 Summer Olympics|Olympic Games]] gold medallist [[Chris Brasher]] from the 27 June attempt, combined to provide pacing for Bannister's run. The race<ref name=":1">{{cite news | title= On This Day, 1950–2005: 6 May 1954: Bannister breaks four-minute mile | url= http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/may/6/newsid_2511000/2511575.stm | access-date= 26 October 2013 | work=[[BBC News]]}}<br />Includes full footage of the race.</ref> was broadcast live by [[BBC Radio]] and commentated by [[1924 Summer Olympics|1924 Olympic]] 100 metres champion [[Harold Abrahams]], of ''[[Chariots of Fire]]'' fame.
[[File:Iffley Road Track, Oxford - blue plaque.JPG|thumb|[[Blue plaque]] at [[Oxford University]]'s [[Roger Bannister running track|Iffley Road Track]], recording the first sub-4-minute [[mile run]] by Roger Bannister on 6 May 1954]]
Bannister had begun his day at a hospital in London, where he sharpened his racing spikes and rubbed graphite on them so they would not pick up too much cinder ash. He took a mid-morning train from [[Paddington Station]] to Oxford, nervous about the rainy, windy conditions that afternoon.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news | author= Stephen Wilson | date= 1 March 2012 | title= AP Interview: Roger Bannister relives 4-minute mile and stays coy on London Olympic flame | url= https://news.yahoo.com/ap-interview-roger-bannister-relives-4-minute-mile-231018636--spt.html | access-date= 26 October 2013 | agency= [[Associated Press]] }}</ref>

Being a dual-meet format, there were seven men entered in the mile: Alan Gordon, George Dole and Nigel Miller from Oxford University; and four British AAA runners: Bannister, his two pacemakers Brasher and Chataway, and [[Tom Hulatt]]. Nigel Miller arrived as a spectator and he only realised that he was due to run when he read the programme. Efforts to borrow a running kit failed and he could not take part, thus reducing the field to six.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/athletics/2378077/My-part-in-Bannisters-mile.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/athletics/2378077/My-part-in-Bannisters-mile.html |archive-date=12 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|title=My part in Bannister's mile|date=2 May 2004|newspaper=[[The Daily Telegraph]]|access-date=27 April 2014}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

The race went off as scheduled at 6:00&nbsp;pm, and Brasher and Bannister went immediately to the front of the pack.<ref name=":1" /> Brasher (wearing No. 44) led both the first lap in 58&nbsp;seconds and the half-mile in 1:58, with Bannister (No. 41) tucked in behind, and Chataway (No. 42) a stride behind Bannister.<ref name=":0" /> Chataway moved to the front after the second lap and maintained the pace with a 3:01 split at the final lap bell. Chataway continued to lead around the front turn until Bannister began his finishing kick with about 275&nbsp;yards to go (just over half a lap), running the last lap in just under 59&nbsp;seconds.<ref>{{Cite web | title= Too Modest by Half – Reliving Sir Roger Bannister's Four-Minute Mile | url= http://www.oxford-royale.co.uk/articles/reliving-sir-roger-bannisters-four-minute-mile.html | access-date= 26 October 2013 | date= 20 March 2012 |publisher=Oxford Royale Academy }}</ref>

The stadium announcer for the race was [[Norris McWhirter]], who went on to co-publish and co-edit the ''[[Guinness World Records|Guinness Book of Records]]''.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/3643039.stm|title=Record Breakers' McWhirter dies|date=20 April 2004|work=[[BBC News]]|access-date=4 March 2018}}</ref> He teased the crowd by delaying his announcement of Bannister's race time for as long as possible:<ref>{{Cite web | author= Tom Michalik | title= The Four Minute Mile! | url= http://faculty.randolphcollege.edu/tmichalik/4min.htm | access-date= 26 October 2013 | publisher= [[Randolph College|randolphcollege.edu]] }}</ref>

{{blockquote|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 announcement. Bannister's time was 3&nbsp;minutes 59.4&nbsp;seconds.<ref name=":6" />

The claim that a four-minute mile was once thought to be impossible by "informed" observers was and is a widely propagated myth created by sportswriters and debunked by Bannister himself in his memoir, ''The Four-Minute Mile'' (1955).

The reason the myth took hold was that four minutes was a round number that lay slightly out of reach of the world record (by just 1.4&nbsp;seconds) for nine years, which was longer than it might otherwise have been due to the effect of the [[Second World War]] in interrupting athletic progress in the combatant countries.{{citation needed|date=May 2019}} The Swedish runners, [[Gunder Hägg]] and [[Arne Andersson]], in a series of head-to-head races in the period 1942–45, had already [[Mile run world record progression|lowered the world mile record]] by five seconds to the pre-Bannister record. Knowledgeable track fans are still most impressed by the fact that Bannister ran a four-minute mile on very low-mileage training by modern standards.{{citation needed|date=May 2019}}

Just 46 days later, on 21 June 1954, Bannister's record was broken by his rival, John Landy, in [[Turku]], [[Finland]], with a time of 3&nbsp;minutes 57.9&nbsp;seconds, which the [[IAAF]] ratified as 3&nbsp;minutes 58.0&nbsp;seconds due to the rounding rules then in effect.<ref name=":4" />