Rogers four minutes to immortality

By Stephen Wilson

Monday, May 07, 2012

Roger Bannister remembers those fabled four minutes as if they were yesterday.

Like a proud patriarch regaling wide-eyed children, the 83-year-old avidly recounts that magical four-lap race on a cinder track in Oxford on May 6, 1954 an event that still stands as a transcendent moment in sports.

3 minutes, 59.4 seconds.

"Its amazing," says Bannister, expressive as ever, "that more people have climbed Mount Everest than have broken the 4-minute mile."

The enduring black-and-white images of Bannister, eyes closed, mouth agape, straining across the finish line at the Iffley Road track, symbolise the supreme test of speed and endurance that captured the publics imagination. It made him a global celebrity as the first man to run the mile in under four minutes the mythical barrier that some thought was beyond human reach.

With London hosting the Olympics this summer, the Oxford-educated neurologist knighted Sir Roger in 1975 finds himself in the spotlight again, the embodiment of sporting achievement in Britain.

While Bannister never won an Olympic medal, having finished fourth in the 1,500 metres at the 1952 Helsinki Games, he still represents a strong link to the Olympic ideals of faster, higher, stronger.

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Roger’s four minutes to immortality