Roger Bannister sub-4 spikes up for auction - HOW THE HELL DID HE GO SUB 4 IN THESE!?!?

Runnah wrote:

For the English press, it seems that the 1952 Olympic final was not "Bannister certified".

Exactly. It was simply a prepared in advance excuse on his part.

Landy was in fact much better than Bannister, who only trimmed him that one race when Landy's foot was gashed up.

Runnah wrote:

Would not all the other athletes in the final have had to have gone through the same stress and surprise of having to run another qualifying round to reach the final?

Yes but it would not suite a low mileage runner who was not prepared for it

Think he was just 22 at Olympics though and simply had not reached peak. In 1954 he beat the only other contender for world No 1 Landy

These shoes belong in a museum and a museum should pay those amounts Rojo.

Could LRC buy them? Kickstarter?

Why is Oxford selling these pieces? There is a nice display at Iffly Road Track of the finishing post, huge photos and formally the stop watch still stopped on 3.59.4.

The track is not as cool looking as you'd imagine. I ran a mile race there at the Oxford Iffly Road Series of Miles. I ran an age group record for my state and when I submitted it, the federation originally said road miles are not accepted. Ha ha ha. Dumb asses.

coach d wrote:

Mileage? What mileage? He trained for his sub-4 at lunch time as a medical student at Oxford. Never went over 28 mpw and usually much less

otoh, his book "The Four-Minute Mile" shows he started building base as a schoolboy, then added to it with marathon bike rides as a student.

"my bicycle expeditions grew longer and longer, 70 miles in a day was a common average."

This had to have had an effect. High intensity is more effective on top of a decent base.

And, those 70 miles/day were most likely done on a 50lb bike with no gearing.. if you think those spikes are pathetic, just imagine that bike..

He also took up rowing shortly before starting at Oxford, and ran cross-country for Oxford.

There's a lot of training there that isn't high-intensity intervals..

Start reading on p19,

"The track is not as cool looking as you'd imagine."

-I'd really beg to differ. You're not there for the aesthetic "beauty". You're there for the history. The old covered stands are still in their same place. The church tower that bannister watched old "st George" on top of is still visible at the 220yd mark. The mystique is only further strengthened after realizing the antiquity of Oxford and its surrounding area.

I ran high school track from 1958 to 1962 and those shoes look very similar to those which I wore. There was no heel and no arch support. It was really just a piece of stiff leather for the sole and some sort of soft leather for the upper. Todays shoes are probably faster but I think it would depend a lot on what your feet are used to running in. Feet adapt themselves quickly. If you train in those ancient shoes, you'll also be able to race in them. Todays runner would find those shoes very difficult to train and race in but over time would get used to them.

Collectibles trade at market value. Rothkos and Ellsworth Kelley paintings are valued less for the subject of the work than for the name of the artist and the availability of the work, and there's a deep market of collectors interested in both artists. There's obviously only one pair of Bannister spikes even though they're garbage as functional running shoes go. Supply is restricted to one, no more will ever be made. How many running collectors could constitute demand? Defining collectors as folks able to write a minimum $50K check I can think of: Phil Knight, John Legere, Hicham El Gerrouj, maybe Seb Coe, Malcolm Gladwell, Farah and Radcliffe do well for themselves, plus add-in any well-off British businessmen with a fondness for athletics, perhaps a foundation or museum with healthy reserves. For comparable sales we have Owens' gold at $1.5m, and the Breal's Cup at ~$800K (540BP). It's not crazy to think Bannister's shoes could go for $300K-$400K.

Bad Wigins wrote:

reader of the forums wrote:

That which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

Deliberate ignorance of the evidence isn't absence of evidence.

If you're too lazy or full of denial to learn about early doping on your own steam, that's your problem. It's not my job to teach you history.

The irony.

Yes. The history of the track and Oxford itself are amazing but the track has a all modern stand on the home straight and then a shabby 70s style building near the first turn. Then there's nothing but wind swept open space. I imagined Oxford style building around the track and it being on the Oxford campus. It's not that grand a track, nor very fast with the wind.

The Iffly Road festival of miles is a great event though. I'd do it again for sure.

The Legend of R.B. wrote:

Roger Bannister went sub-4, wearing THESE, on a DIRT track. Pretty sure he was a med student at the time as well. Amazing, the guy would have been incredible as a full-time T&F athlete today with modern technology and training.

I've gotta look up his training logs. Can anyone give a brief rundown of his training? How does it compare with modern practices.

He was a "mudder," as they say ;).

As a junior in high school I once ran a 1:57.3, on a dirt, dirt track, with my shoes encrusted and caked with so much mud my spikes were not gripping Anything. --It had poured the day before. I am proud of the fact that I went wire to wire against the 2nd best guy in my league. High school was fun. Somewhere there are pictures of me finishing first in a series of races with some guy finishing right behind me with a disappointed look on his face.

OF course college is the great leveler. Won a few races. And "medaled" in every European B circuit race I ran in except one. Also in a few stateside international meets. Got my ass kicked a ton of times though. On the other hand, I didn't get the advantage of being a "mudder," anywhere.

...Let's not forget Bannister was still a young man, and as long as the shoes didn't fall apart, or off his feet, he was going to be okay in those shoes.

What is the fastest men's barefoot mile???

No all the letsrun millennial experts would line up to tell him he sucks.

Iffly Road Miler wrote:

The track is not as cool looking as you'd imagine. I ran a mile race there at the Oxford Iffly Road Series of Miles. I ran an age group record for my state and when I submitted it, the federation originally said road miles are not accepted. Ha ha ha. Dumb asses.

First of all, it's "Iffley Road", with an "e". Any historian of the sport knows that.

The stand is 1970s. Still works, as poured concrete tends to. The track, mercifully, has been synthetic since at least 1980. But is no less historic to those who run there.

Sadly, there is no "Oxford campus" on which a track could be built. I think that Tom Quad in Christchurch College could be enhanced by the construction of a synthetic track, and it would certainly help those who attempt to get round it drunk in dinner dress before the clock strikes midnight, in a pale imitation of the Chariots-of-fire original (occasionally naked), but I'm not sure there's room for a full 400 metres.

It's a really great idea to have that festival of miles each summer. Many age group records are falling and there is no better place to have mile races.

A Duck wrote:

What is the fastest men's barefoot mile???

It would be very fast, but barefoot racing is frowned upon by shoe companies.

As an Englishman I would buy it.

Coventry wrote:

As an Englishman I would buy it.

JRinaldi wrote:Vent - why did Ralph never break 1:46 at sea level if the altitude was such a handicap?

eh ???

it's called

GOLD

he peaked for '68

shame

wilson

ran an utterly suicidal race

solo

he split 24.0 !!!

at 7300+

& held on to 1'44.5+

fully rested, ideally paced to bell, at sea-level

that wouda been at worst

~ 1'42-low

Yes, I may be a little bias - but the fact still remains that outside of his two runs in Mexico, he was a 1:46 man at best.

eh ???

i'm more interested in best intrinsic performance

doubell wouda beem smashed if wilson had tried to run sensible 200 !!!

Looking at all 8 finalists, I can't see any major improvements from any of the athletes after the major handicap of the altitude, as you have suggested. I don't believe the impacts on an athlete born at altitude are as great as your formula is predicting (barring the 24.0 first 200, which I don;t think is that fast anyway).

Maybe the race was just like the final in 2012 where the stars aligned for most of the finalists and the altitude had zero impact...that said, a 2+ sec improvement for Doubell is very hard to ignore.

1 Ralph Doubell Australia 1:44.3 NR

2 Wilson Kiprugut Kenya 1:44.5

3 Tom Farrell United States 1:45.4

4 Walter Adams West Germany 1:45.8 (1:44.90)

5 Jozef Plachý Czechoslovakia 1:45.9 (1:45.4h – 1:45.53e 9 years later)

6 Dieter Fromm East Germany 1:46.2 (1:45.4h – 1:45.96e)

7 Thomas Saisi Kenya 1:47.5 (1:46.3h – 1:47.59e)

8 Ben Cayenne Trinidad and Tobago 1:54.3 (pb in the heat 1:46.83)

[Guys such as Werner Lueg were training under very difficult conditions in the aftermath of WW2.