Sebastian Coe’s description of the doctor’s record-breaking run in 1954 underlines its enduring significance 70 years later
Perhaps it takes one sporting giant to truly appreciate the towering performance of another. Exactly 70 years ago today, Sir Roger Bannister became the first person to run a mile in under four minutes, a target that existed purely in the realms of the fantastical until, on that blustery Oxford day in 1954, he subverted the possible. How good was it? Well, when I asked Sebastian Coe to put it into a wider context last week, he replied: “On every metric, I think it is arguably at the top of all sporting achievements in the last 100 years.”
That is high praise indeed from someone who was himself a double Olympic champion and broke multiple world records. And while the fact that Bannister’s time of 3min 59.4sec chopped two seconds off the previous world record is staggering enough, that was only part of Coe’s case. “People don’t appreciate the mental barrier that he also had to break through,” he pointed out. “He was a doctor. And he would say to me: ‘I used to read articles in medical journals saying that if anybody tried it, they would probably die in the process’.”
