SIR ROGER BANNISTER: HOW TO BEAT AN IMPOSSIBLE GOAL - GEOGRAFÍA - 2025

Sir Roger Bannister (1929-2018) was the first man to run a mile (1.609344 kilometers) in under 4 minutes. Until he did, most people believed that this mark was impossible to break.

They believed that it was impossible for the human body to be faster and that it would collapse under pressure. They thought so until Bannister proved them wrong. He trained in his own way, sometimes not as long as his competitors did, and believing he could do it.

Birth and childhood

Bannister was born in Harrow, England. She went to the Vaughan Road Primary School in Harrow and continued her education at the City of Bath Boys' School and the University College School in London.

Later he went to medical school at Oxford University (Exeter College and Merton College) and to St Mary's Hospital Medical School (now part of Imperial College London).

Bannister came from a working class

He wanted to study medicine but knew that his parents could not pay for college. When he was 10 he thought life would be very boring.

Decided to change things

He discovered he had a talent for running and a lot of stamina when training. He decided to push himself and his work paid off: he won an athletic scholarship to attend the University of Oxford.

While he was in college, the press reported on his talent. He refused to compete in the 1948 Olympics even though seeing them inspired him to go to the 1952 Olympics. Expectations were high; Bannister expected to win the 1500 meters and in turn Great Britain expected a lot from him.

It appears that at the last minute the race schedule was changed, breaking Bannister's rest routine and finishing fourth.

He was so upset that he spent the next two months deciding whether to stop running.

In the end, he decided to prove to himself and others that he could do better. In 1940 the record for running a mile was 4:01. Some doctors and scientists thought it was physically impossible to do it in less than 4 minutes.

Bannister began training 1.5 hours a day, doing intense speed exercises.

However, Bannister was not the only one who was going to try. Many runners were training, including his Australian rival John Landy.

The Bannister Chance: May 6, 1954

Experts believed that the record could only be broken on a windless day and around 20 degrees Celsius on a hard, dry clay track. May 6, 1954 was not that day; it was cold and damp. The race was held on Iffley Road, Oxford.

Bannister had rested five days earlier because it would give him energy both physically and psychologically. Although conditions were poor, Bannister ran the race and won it with a time of 3:59, setting a new world record.

Bannister's beliefs

Later Bannister said that he believed Landy had lost "heart" and that the 4 minute barrier had become a barrier for him. Just 46 days later Landy broke the record again and in the following years, more and more people broke the 4 minute mark.

Once Bannister proved that it was possible to run under 4 minutes, everyone was able to do it.

Awards and achievements

Bannister has obtained several recognitions:

• Sports Illustrated Man of the Year.
• Honorary degrees from the University of Sheffield and the University of Bath.
• He was knighted for his services as President of Sport England.
• His most prominent role in academic medicine is in the field of autonomic failure, an area of ​​neurology that focuses on diseases caused by particular automatic responses of the nervous system.
• He wrote articles on exercise physiology and neurology, and since 1969 edited the book Brain's Clinical Neurology (renamed Brain and Bannister's Clinical Neurology, 7th edition, 1990).
• He was made a Knight in 1975.