Obituaries

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Sir Roger Bannister, first person to run a four-minute mile:


Sir Roger Gilbert Bannister, CH, CBE (23 March 1929 – 3 March 2018) was a British middle-distance athlete, doctor and academic, who ran the first sub-four-minute mile.


In the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, Bannister set a British record in the 1500 metres and finished fourth. This strengthened his resolve to be the first 4-minute miler. He achieved this feat on 6 May 1954 at Iffley Road track in Oxford, with Chris Chataway and Chris Brasher providing the pacing. When the announcer, Norris McWhirter, declared "The time was three...", the cheers of the crowd drowned out Bannister's exact time, which was 3 minutes 59.4 seconds. Bannister's record lasted just 46 days. He had reached this record with minimal training, while practising as a junior doctor.

Bannister went on to become a distinguished neurologist and Master of Pembroke College, Oxford, before retiring in 1993. When asked whether the 4-minute mile was his proudest achievement, he said he felt prouder of his contribution to academic medicine through research into the responses of the nervous system. Bannister was patron of the MSA Trust. He was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2011.[2]



On the 50th anniversary of running the sub-4-minute mile, Bannister was interviewed by the BBC's sports correspondent Rob Bonnet. At the conclusion of the interview, Bannister was asked whether he looked back on the sub-4-minute mile as the most important achievement of his life. Bannister replied to the effect that no, he rather saw his subsequent forty years of practising as a neurologist and some of the new procedures he introduced as being more significant. His major contribution in academic medicine was in the field of autonomic failure, an area of neurology focusing on illnesses characterised by certain automatic responses of the nervous system (for example, elevated heart rate when standing up) not occurring.

For his efforts, Bannister was also made the inaugural recipient of the Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year award in 1955 (he was given the award as the 1954 Sportsman of the Year, but it was awarded in January 1955) and is one of the few non-Americans recognised by the American-published magazine as such.


In a UK poll conducted by Channel 4 in 2002, the British public voted Bannister's historic sub-4-minute mile as number 13 in the list of the 100 Greatest Sporting Moments.[19]

Bannister is the subject of the ESPN film Four Minutes (2005). This film is a dramatisation, its major departures from the factual record being the creation of a fictional character as Bannister's coach, who was actually Franz Stampfl, an Austrian, and secondly his meeting his wife, Moyra Jacobsson, in the early 1950s when in fact they met in London only a few months before the Miracle Mile itself took place. Bannister was portrayed by Jamie Maclachlan.

Bannister: Everest on the Track, The Roger Bannister Story is a 2016 TV documentary about his childhood and youth in WWII and postwar Britain and the breaking of the 4 minute mile barrier, with interviews of participants and witnesses to the 1954 race, and later runners inspired by Bannister and his achievement, including Phil Knight who says that Roger Bannister inspired him to start Nike.[20]

In the 1988 television mini-series The Four Minute Mile, about the rivalry between Bannister, John Landy and Wes Santee to be first to break the 4 minute mile mark, Bannister was portrayed by actor Richard Huw.
The 50th anniversary of Bannister's achievement was marked by a commemorative British 50-pence coin. The reverse of the coin shows the legs of a runner and a stopwatch (stopped at 3:59.4).

Bannister, arguably the most famous record-setter in the mile, is also the man who held the record for the shortest period of time, at least since the IAAF started to ratify records.

In 1996, Pembroke College, University of Oxford named the Bannister Building to honour the achievements of Sir Roger, a former Master of the college. The building, an 18th-century townhouse in Brewer Street, was converted to provide accommodation for graduate students. Following extensive refurbishments during 2011 and 2012, it became part of the building complex surrounding the Rokos Quad, and became used as undergraduate accommodation.[21]
In 2012, Bannister carried the Olympic flame at the site of his memorable feat, in the Oxford University track stadium now named after him.

Much more at Wikipedia.