Baloo's bugle volume 21, Number 9

Sir Roger Bannister

Roger Gilbert Bannister was born March 23, 1929 in Harrow, England. As a child he loved to run. He said, “I just ran anywhere and everywhere—never because it was an end in itself, but because it was easier for me to run than to walk.” He won his school’s cross country meet three years in a row between the ages of 12 and 14.

In 1946 he began medical studies at Oxford Univerisy on scholarship. He had never run on a track or even worn a pair of running shoes with spikes. Every day, during his lunch hour, he paid threepence [Today equivalent of one dollar] to enter Paddington Park, near the hospital where he worked, so that he could practice running. He was a good runner but barely made the Oxford Third Track team. The became the pacer for members of Oxfords First Track team in the mile run, but instead of stopping as expected he continued to run winning by 20 yards.

Bannister continued running as an outlet while he completed his Medical Training. By 1952 he ran in the Helsinki Olympics coming in fourth. In the winter and spring of 1954 Bannister was so busy with his studies he did not have time to train. After hearing that Australian miler John Landy was intending to try to break the four minute mile that spring, Bannister decide to try and break the record at a race on May 6, 1954, In t he morning of May 6, he went to his job at St. Mary’s Medical School in London.

After his work, Bannister took the train from London to Oxford. On the train he met Franz Stampfl, who coached Bannister's teammate Chris Brasher. Stampfl told Bannister that despite the weather, he should give it his best try, saying, , "If you don't take this opportunity, you may never forgive yourself." Bannister remained undecided through lunch and teatime later that day. As the race began at the Iffley Road track in Oxford, only about 1,100 spectators had showed up. Among them were Bannister's parents, who had been told by a friend that something special might happen that day.

As Bannister warmed up on the track, he kept looking toward the Church of St. John the Evangelist, where a flag flying straight out above the steeple showed the strength of the wind. A few minutes before the race started at 6:10 p.m., the flag began to drop, and Bannister told himself that if everyone in characteristically rainy and windy England waited for good weather before doing anything, nothing would ever be done. He told teammates, Chataway and Brasher he was going to make the attempt on the record.

The gun sounded, and the runners took off. Brasher was in the lead until the end of the third lap, when Chataway took over the pace. On the backstretch Bannister passed him, moving ahead of all the other runners, into a new pace, never run before. On the stretch, a gust of wind pushed him sideways, stealing valuable fractions of seconds, but Bannister kept going, hitting the tape at 3:59.4. According to Nelson and Quercetani, he later said of those last few seconds of the race, "I felt that the moment of a lifetime had come. There was no pain, only a great utility of movement and aim. The world seemed to stand still or did not exist, the only reality was the next two hundred yards of track under my feet." As he crossed over the finish line, he was so spent that he collapsed, almost passing out.

Roger Bannister wen on to become a Neurologist. In 1975 he was Knighted for his service. He continues to live near London, England.