Is Roger Bannister really the 1st sub-4 miler?

A more appropriate question to you would be whether you believe that the original inhabitants of the Americas were savages?

Er... wrote:

By any chance do you believe that the 9/11 attacks were faked and the World Trade Center collapsed from explosives placed inside it?

To respond to Ray, Cunningham's 4:04 was not on a 160-yard track. And I am sorry for his wounds and scars, but "ifs" really do not count. It's also a long way from 4:04 to 4:00.

To respond to Er, it doesn't matter what the AAA rules were, Bannister is the answer to the "first 4:00 mile" question. He covered 1760 yards in 3:59.4. Period. I also admire Landy a lot, but Bannister was the first guy. You have to really twist things around to say otherwise.

I'm not sure why you're responding to me--I agree with you entirely.

Why would anyone think that cultures as sophisticated and highly developed as theirs would make them "savages"?

Jefe in the CO wrote:

A more appropriate question to you would be whether you believe that the original inhabitants of the Americas were savages?

Er... wrote:

By any chance do you believe that the 9/11 attacks were faked and the World Trade Center collapsed from explosives placed inside it?

Oops, sorry Er, I was responding to Jefe, the guy you responded to. My bad.

No worries.

My 2 cents on the Cunningham story: when I was in high school I had a book on training for track and field written by, I think, a former UCLA coach. In a section on the mile, he writes something along the lines of,

The 4:00 barrier had been thought impossible until Glenn Cunningham finally broke it in training.

I was flabbergasted, having devoured Bannister's autobiography around the same time. And this was long, long before Al Gore invented the internet, so I looked whenever I could for more information. Anybody know who first made the claim for Cunningham's sub four? Based on my sketchy knowledge of his personality, he seems unlikely to have begun the rumour himself.

Avocados Number wrote:The original poster was obviously not asking who is recognized by some organization or by various sports historians as the first sub-4 miler, and other posters clearly understood that. If it's your view that Bannister was the first sub-4 miler, that's fine, but your personal view, based on your personal standards of "legitimacy," is hardly the "end of story," as you proclaimed.

Most posters also understand that there are no documented sub 4 minute miles prior to Bannisters so reference to any others is pure speculation.

The entire exercise of trying to discredit....or whatever word you wish to use...Bannister's feat is pretty lame. Documented as accurate track, accurate time.

Knock yourself out fighting it.

Jefe in the CO wrote:

Was Bannister the first to break 4 minutes in the mile? No way in hell. Was Bannister the first to run under 4 minutes in the mile under AAA rules? Absolutely yes.

You mean like some sort of record of performance?

Imagine that.

Sort of like the entire exercise of trying to cling to the idea that Bannister must have been first.

Do you really believe that the runners who were attempting this feat long before Bannister were not capable of measuring an accurate mile? Do you realize that the amount of money being wagered on these races was often a huge sum, often equilavent to several months salary?

Jefe in CO is dead on. Bannister was the first to do it by the AAA arbitrary rules. So in that sense, yes, he was the first.

Avocados Number also brings up a valid point in that the Bannister race essentially violated these very "sacred rules."

Also, no one seems to refute the Big Chief Hawk claim. The man most likely did not care one bit what he had done in terms of athletic history. He probably just wanted to be the first one across the finish line in order to collect his prize. The fact that he was Native probably led most people to quickly "forget" the race's outcome.

(Side note question: Is he the same Native American who supposedly ran a 47-49 minute 10 mile race as well?)

No one is trying to "cling to any idea." We are not family member of Bannister, and we don't have money riding on this. But what is is. He covered the distance under 4:00. That's it. No one had before. There's no valid evidence of them having done so, and it was not even an important athletic quest, the 4:00 mile, decades before.

I honestly don't understand what's the point of pretending otherwise.

Just a follow-up. Ibbotson discusses this whole affair in chapter 3 of his autobiography ("The Four Minute Smiler: The Derek Ibbotson Story.") The British Amateur Athletic Board accepted it reasonably quickly, but, shamefully, the IAAF let it sit for over a year before ratifying it (and by then Elliott had run faster).

precisely wrote:

Sort of like the entire exercise of trying to cling to the idea that Bannister must have been first.

Who's clinging to a "must"?

Yanqui wrote:

No one is trying to "cling to any idea." We are not family member of Bannister, and we don't have money riding on this. But what is is. He covered the distance under 4:00. That's it. No one had before. There's no valid evidence of them having done so, and it was not even an important athletic quest, the 4:00 mile, decades before.

I honestly don't understand what's the point of pretending otherwise.

Yes, this whole debate is nutty. At least one or two of the "opponents" are basically saying: "I like the idea of tough, working-class athletes more than I like the idea of pampered, upper-class university toffs." And you know what, so do I! My favorite miler of all time may well be Walter George. In the 20th century, I certainly respect Bannister, but frankly I have more personal interest in the Santees, the Landys, and the Elliotts of the world. All that is fine and good. But it doesn't change historical fact, which is the only thing truly at issue here.

old tymer wrote:

Drafting at a 4-minute pace (15mph running speed)provides the net effect of a 15mph tail wind?!? I don't buy that for a second. Have you never run in a 15mph wind?

I didn't say that drafting at a 4-minute pace provides the net effect of a 15-mph tailwind. I said that running in the aerodynamic shadow of other runners or other windbreaks at 4-minute pace can provide the equivalent of a tailwind of up to approximately 15 mph in energy savings. It's that reading comprehension thing again.

None of us knows who the first person was to run a mile in under four minutes. It is highly unlikely that it was Roger Bannister, although he may well have been the first person to run a mile in under four minutes on a quarter-mile track assisted by teammates. John Landy may well have been the first person to run a mile in under four minutes on a quarter-mile track without the assistance of teammates. Bannister was apparently the first person to be recognized as a sub-four miler by IAAF. Landy was perhaps the first person to run a sub-four mile in accordance with IAAF rules in place at the time.

It doesn't seem as though any of that is really in dispute. It is also not in dispute that Bannister got the credit for being the first sub-4 miler. I'll admit that I don't like the way that Bannister and his compatriots accomplished that, and I admit that I have more respect for Landy's accomplishment than I do for Bannister's. If you have a different view about all of that, that's fine, but I don't see why you should declare your feelings to be the last word on the matter.

Man, really... My "feelings" aren't of the slightest importance here: the historical facts are what matters. When substantial facts surface that are really convincing that Bannister was not the "first," then we will all listen. Nothing remotely like that has occured on this thread and we're all in dangerous territory when folks like you use words like "stuntman" and "cheat" in regard to ANY athlete of Bannister's stature. That kind of stuff doesn't help anyone's cause.

The first 4-minute miler was a black female lesbian with a learning disability who drove a hybrid and ate veggies all the time.

Any other possibility is racist, sexist, and a bunch of other words ending in -ist.

Seriously, what is your basis for this ludicrous statement? Highly unlikely why?

Avocados Number wrote:

[quote]old tymer wrote:

None of us knows who the first person was to run a mile in under four minutes. It is highly unlikely that it was Roger Bannister

Er... wrote:

Seriously, what is your basis for this ludicrous statement? Highly unlikely why?

Avocados Number wrote:

[quote]old tymer wrote:

None of us knows who the first person was to run a mile in under four minutes. It is highly unlikely that it was Roger Bannister

Just for the record, that idiotic quote IS NOT MINE.

Sorry for that! When quoting posts quoting posts it's sometimes hard to attribute accurately.