One of the official timers was Harold Abrahams of "Chariots of Fire" fame. He is in the iconic photo. And anyone questioning his abilities or ethics in the matter is barking up the wrong tree.
One of the official timers was Harold Abrahams of "Chariots of Fire" fame. He is in the iconic photo. And anyone questioning his abilities or ethics in the matter is barking up the wrong tree.
Four minute mile wrote:
How accurate was hand timing? In the photos of Bannister breaking the 4 minute mile, you see a couple of guys with stopwatches. I'm sure each of their times were different by at least a few hundreds or even tenths of a second. Did they go with the fastest one or average? Human reaction time is around 0.25 seconds, did they add that in too?
Hand timing was accurate. It was also the only method there was until fairly recently. If you want to raise questions about Bannister's time then you have to raise them about about ALL times from before there was FAT. The rules of the day required three timers for a record to be ratified among other things. There were rules that governed which time would be counted in the event of discrepancies, and those were quite common. I forget specifically what the rule was, they either accepted the slowest time or the middle one, I think, but I know they did not accept the fastest one. And no, they did not add any time to compensate for anything.
And to whomever mentioned spectators wearing coats, it was a fairly cool day and in those years people dressed much more formally than they do now. Look at photos of crowds at baseball games from before 1960 and you'll see many men in suits and ties.
Nail in the Bannisster by R, Stornaway wrote:
Bad Wigins wrote:
The real question, which I never noticed on that video, is why is everyone in the crowd wearing overcoats? Was it cold? Who sets a mid-d world record in cold weather? Didn't look like it was raining either. Maybe it was just the style to wear overcoats in all weather.
It was cold. Bannister was much tougher than you.
It was at the end of the season. The weather is always iffy. They were trying to get it in before the Australian season started cos they knew that John Landy would blow it away.
What I always wondered about was that paced racing was illegal until a decade or so ago, and that race is always heralded as a 'team' event with each describing their role pacing the run. It really wasn't done in a race.
And then a couple of weeks later Landy blew it away.
Ron Clarke really thought that Landy was the first to break 4:00 legitimately for the reason you mention, i.e, Bannister had pacers and Landy did not. It was a gray area. It was not uncommon for runners to "help" a prospective record holder get his time even though pace making was forbidden.
Four minute mile wrote:
How accurate was hand timing? In the photos of Bannister breaking the 4 minute mile, you see a couple of guys with stopwatches. I'm sure each of their times were different by at least a few hundreds or even tenths of a second. Did they go with the fastest one or average? Human reaction time is around 0.25 seconds, did they add that in too?
You nob jockey...absolute nob jockey...
I agree with the above post, but can you find a different insult than "nob jockey "?
It is hideously homophobic.
Equalitywins wrote:
I agree with the above post, but can you find a different insult than "nob jockey "?
It is hideously homophobic.
Girls ride too.
Four minute mile wrote:
How accurate was hand timing? In the photos of Bannister breaking the 4 minute mile, you see a couple of guys with stopwatches. I'm sure each of their times were different by at least a few hundreds or even tenths of a second. Did they go with the fastest one or average? Human reaction time is around 0.25 seconds, did they add that in too?
If Bannister had been clocked at 3:59.9, I could understand the cynicism, but the guy was a full 0.6 seconds under the 4 minute mark. There's no way that the timers got it that wrong.
If you don't trust hand timing to be within 0.6 seconds of the actual time, you have to throw out pretty much every sprint race result from the hand timing era. How can you trust the results of a race where every finisher was within 0.2 seconds of each other if the error in timing was 0.6+ seconds? If I accept your premise, the recorded winner of the 1952 OG 100m might have actually finished last. With the error you suggest, a guy who was recorded at 10.79 seconds could easily have actually run slower than 10.91 seconds.
If we assume that places were recorded correctly for hand timed sprint races, then we have to wonder just how the times ended up being in the proper order. With 0.6 seconds of error, the guy timing the second place runner could easily end up recording a faster time than the guy timing the first place runner. You'd end up with race results where the fastest recorded time would almost never actually be attributed to the first place finisher.
crumpet wrote:
It was at the end of the season. The weather is always iffy. They were trying to get it in before the Australian season started cos they knew that John Landy would blow it away.
You have it backwards. Then, as it is now, the Australian season preceded the Northern hemisphere season. Landy had missed it several times already that spring. He ran 4:02.0 in December, 4:02.4 in January, 4:05.6 and 4:02.6 in February, 4:05 in March, and another 4:02 in April. He had finished the Australian season and was traveling for the start of the racing season in European when he heard Bannister had gotten it.
Something not mentioned yet is that one of the timers had a string he had his thumb of his right hand against on a post. The string went across the finish line so that he could click the stop watch in his left had at the moment the string moved on the actual finish line rather than using a visual.
The timer did not even look at the runner as they crossed the line. He just reacted to the string.
The premise of the thread I agree is disrespectful given the situation but the discussion about timing accuracy of the time period is interesting for sure. Maybe a better subject title would help that?
Dingler wrote:
crumpet wrote:
It was at the end of the season. The weather is always iffy. They were trying to get it in before the Australian season started cos they knew that John Landy would blow it away.
You have it backwards. Then, as it is now, the Australian season preceded the Northern hemisphere season. Landy had missed it several times already that spring. He ran 4:02.0 in December, 4:02.4 in January, 4:05.6 and 4:02.6 in February, 4:05 in March, and another 4:02 in April. He had finished the Australian season and was traveling for the start of the racing season in European when he heard Bannister had gotten it.
It’s worth mentioning that Gunder Hagg brought the record down from 4.07 to 4.01.4 during WW2 but was then barred from competition for earning money from running.
ex-runner wrote:
People today don't understand how accurate hand timing can be.
During Coe's 800m WR the three/four official hand timers agreed on 1:41.6 for his WR and the electronic timing showed 1:41.73
He would have been travelling much faster than Bannister through the line.
Yeah, ive done a bit of handtiming meets, plus just timing races when for splits when spectating. I'm ususally .
Four minute mile wrote:
How accurate was hand timing? In the photos of Bannister breaking the 4 minute mile, you see a couple of guys with stopwatches. I'm sure each of their times were different by at least a few hundreds or even tenths of a second. Did they go with the fastest one or average? Human reaction time is around 0.25 seconds, did they add that in too?
Enough is enough with this site, repeated disrespect and the letsrun team let it go for revenue over virtues. No choice but I will be ddos this site into absolute oblivion. Prepare yourself letsrun as I will be coming at you from all angles.
no
Look it up then post your crap
HRE wrote:
Ron Clarke really thought that Landy was the first to break 4:00 legitimately for the reason you mention, i.e, Bannister had pacers and Landy did not. It was a gray area. It was not uncommon for runners to "help" a prospective record holder get his time even though pace making was forbidden.
HRE, personally I feel that Clarke has a point here, my late father (who saw numerous great races from 1950s-1970s) always claimed that in the old days pacers had to finish the race. There were question marks over this into 1976 with Walker's 3:49 and questions over the pacer (who did a lousy job). I personally want a 50% distance rule for pacers and record eligibility. Anyhow, what about Hägg's 4:01.4? Did he have pacers?
Subway Surfers Addiction wrote:
HRE wrote:
Ron Clarke really thought that Landy was the first to break 4:00 legitimately for the reason you mention, i.e, Bannister had pacers and Landy did not. It was a gray area. It was not uncommon for runners to "help" a prospective record holder get his time even though pace making was forbidden.
HRE, personally I feel that Clarke has a point here, my late father (who saw numerous great races from 1950s-1970s) always claimed that in the old days pacers had to finish the race. There were question marks over this into 1976 with Walker's 3:49 and questions over the pacer (who did a lousy job). I personally want a 50% distance rule for pacers and record eligibility. Anyhow, what about Hägg's 4:01.4? Did he have pacers?
How old are you, 65????
Wes Santee came within half second twice of being the first under 4 minutes. I'm sure with electronic timing he would have been first!
I'd suspect that there was an average of multiple watches, at least 2 timing first. (If not a couple more backups for this epic event).
Or,
You could run a David Katz race
Where the race photo shows you under the clock in 30:55 which is what your watch reads, and Katz has you in 31:01.