My old coach said Roger Bannister did NOT run sub-4 first. He said a few weeks earlier someone did it at Dartmouth track.

John Landy would've been the first sub 4 minute miler if not for those sneaky Brits.

In some sense it doesn't matter if someone else did it first if they didn't do it in a race where the record could be ratified.

No, really, this happened. I was there:

A bigfoot attending med school at Dartmouth broke 4:00 that day. An ET exchange student from the Galaxy Zinfandel was leading, but he/she/it dropped dead at 1300 yards from bacterial contamination -- those pesky earthlings and their germs!

The bigfoot celebrated his first-sub-4 milestone by accidentally squeezing to death the chief finish line judge. The bigfoot was crying happy tears. The finish line judge's tears weren't associated with happiness, trust me.

The CIA confiscated all film of the race and its aftermath.

Elvis was there, too. He'd come to Dartmouth to get his swiveling hips xrayed by the bigfoot med student, but once he saw the bigfoot's big squeeze and his tears, Elvis fled. He was quoted as saying, "Ain't nothin' like a bigfoot cryin' all the time. Ya kill a judge, ya ain't no friend of mine."

Lee Harvey Oswald generally wasn't interested in the sporting life, but that day he was mesmerized by the mile track race, because he thought that the bigfoot was just a hairy Russian he'd known in Moscow.

Legend is that Glenn Cunningham did it at a training session in the early 30s IIRC. He did go on to set the mile record at 4:06.8 in 1934 and it stood for a few years. I doubt a training session would have had reliable enough timing, witnesses, and record keeping to get it recognition. He may have indeed done it but repeating it when it counted eluded him.

I am sure East Africans for thousands of years had broken 4 many times while chasing antelope

According to one of these fact/ history books that I dont have time right now to pull open, since it was done in a training session his coach told him no one would believe them if they told people.

Even if someone did it before in a practice session, so what. Being the fastest at practice has never done anyone any good. Perform on race day or GTFO,

Hard for me to believe that a guy who was capable of breaking 4 in a workout couldn't duplicate the performance in a race. If you can run under 4 minutes right now in the middle of training during practice, you should be able to schedule a race for 7-10 days from now, taper/sharpen over the next week, and then crush the 4 minute barrier when the race comes around.

Prolly not wrote:

Legend is that Glenn Cunningham did it at a training session in the early 30s IIRC. He did go on to set the mile record at 4:06.8 in 1934 and it stood for a few years. I doubt a training session would have had reliable enough timing, witnesses, and record keeping to get it recognition. He may have indeed done it but repeating it when it counted eluded him.

One time I broke the world record in the mile, but then I woke up.

Cunningham actually ran a 4:04.4 mile.

The legend of another guy running sub 4 first belonged to another British guy.

Someone named Donald Trump claimed this was him. He subsequently developed bone spurs from overtraining and gave up his running career, never to be heard from again.

I ran a 3:11 marathon when the race director couldn’t see me.

hard to believe wrote:

Hard for me to believe that a guy who was capable of breaking 4 in a workout couldn't duplicate the performance in a race. If you can run under 4 minutes right now in the middle of training during practice, you should be able to schedule a race for 7-10 days from now, taper/sharpen over the next week, and then crush the 4 minute barrier when the race comes around.

It shouldn't be that hard to believe. What you're assuming is that all of the other variables for performance would be the same. You can't count on weather conditions, health, or just how you feel that day all aligning perfectly. Record-setting performances are usually an alignment of all factors at the right time and place. EVERYTHING comes into play - not just the ability of the athlete. Even a simple distraction at the start of the race could cause someone to not have a record-setting day...

Remember, no one at that point had ever run a sub-4. If someone did it in practice "way back when" - and were capable of running 4:03/4:04 in a race, I'd probably give them the benefit of the doubt on the practice time - but at the same time, it has to be done in an event where you can ratify the record; otherwise, it's just good lore.

And that's it wrote:

Cunningham actually ran a 4:04.4 mile.

The legend of another guy running sub 4 first belonged to another British guy.

Forgot the British guys name but his own time keeper said he didn't remember him running sub 4

Cunningham's mile world record was 4:06.7 and he ran a 3:48 1500, which is about equivalent. He had a lot of performances around 4:08-4:09 and 3:50-3:52. Quite unlikely he should have run 7 seconds faster than his best in a training session. His 800 in 1:49 was fast enough for a sub4, though.

If you're running sub 4 in a time trial without tapering, you are already showing that you can break 4 in less than ideal conditions. You don't need absolutely perfect conditions to repeat a time trial performance.

That story has been around for a long time going back to Cunningham who evidently believed it. The full version is that his coach timed him for a mile using a slow watch and the time was under 4:00. The coach decided not to tell Cunningham that the watch was slow so that Cunningham would believe he was capable of running that fast in competition. When finally told reportedly Cunningham would not believe the watch was slow.

The other pre-Bannister claim was from Ken Wood, a British runner from the north of England who said he did it in training a few weeks before Bannister did. Wood's claim might be more valid than Cunningham's. He was an international class runner whose career was longer than Bannister's. But it was just a claim. It wasn't verifiable and that's why records and the credit that goes with them have to be set in competition.

NO ONE has ever run a sub 4 mile. All these events are being produced on a movie studio somewhere, right next to the sound stage they're prepping for the "next" moon landings.

I'm no Trump supporter, but Donald Trump could have definitely broken 4 before Bannister if he had trained for it.