Glory on Foot

There is no greater glory for a man as long as he lives than that which he wins by his own hands and feet.

--Homer, The Odyssey

When Henry Ford first put his model T on the road in 1908 and ushered in the motor age, the track record for the mile stood at 4:15.6, the record for the shotput at 49 ft. 10 in. And that, the doom-criers felt, was about as fast as a man would manage to run and as far as he would throw the iron ball--in an age when the machine was taking over the work of human muscles. Yet somehow, man's glory of achievement "by his own hands and feet," which the Greeks extolled in their great games, continued to grow. Steadily, by split seconds and fractions of inches, athletes pushed themselves toward greater and greater performance. Last week brought two records beyond the wildest dreams of the model-T age.

In California, 22-year-old Champion Parry O'Brien smashed his own shotput world record (59 ft. 2 1/4in.), and crossed the long-standing 60-ft. barrier: with a mighty heave, he hurled the 16-lb. iron ball 60 ft. 5 1/4 in., a distance long believed to be unattainable. Only two days earlier, an even more "unattainable" record was set: the four-minute mile, long dreamed of by runners, was finally achieved by a shy, gangling British medical student named Roger Bannister.

The Goal. Athletes became really serious about the four-minute mile in 1923, when Finland's famed Paavo Nurmi clocked 4:10.4. Slowly the figure shrank. In 1945, Sweden's Gunder ("The Wonder") Haegg ran a breathtaking 4:01.4, the world record till last week.

By 1947, Roger Bannister, then 17, was an undergraduate at Oxford. In the winter months, he proved an excellent snow shoveler, and as a reward for that distinction--not because anyone thought that he could really run--Bannister got a place as a third-string miler in the annual Oxford-Cambridge track match. He won the race with a dull but respectable 4:30.8. By 1950, carefully studying his stride, his pulse rate (a low 50), his oxygen intake (a high 5 liters) and his diet. Medical Student Bannister had reduced his time to 4:09.9. He had a good light-limbed build for running (6 ft. 1 1/2 in., 154 lbs.). In the 1952 Olympics, Bannister was a well-beaten fourth. But last year, he ran an eye-opening 4:03.6, then ran a specially paced 4:02.

Meanwhile, he could feel the hot breath of Australia's John Landy (4:02) and the U.S.'s Wes Santee (4:03.4). When self-taught Miler Bannister met Austrian Coach Franz Stampfl last November, he agreed for the first time to take some coaching. Stampfl set Bannister to work on arm and leg calisthenics and mountain climbing, taught him to pace himself precisely. A month ago, Bannister went to work in earnest, started off running seven consecutive half miles at a 2:03 pace.

The Race. In the train from London to Oxford last week, Roger Bannister was not at all sure that he wanted to run that day. It was raining and the wind was stiff. Never mind the weather, urged Coach Stampfl: it might actually challenge him to greater effort. "It got down to a discussion of what was bad weather," Stampfl recalled later. "Then we discussed how much was physical and how much was psychological motivation. We ended up talking about supernatural experiences."

At Oxford's rural Iffley Road Track, Bannister wandered about, undecided. The weather was clearing slowly. Five minutes before the start of the annual Oxford v. British A.A.A. mile race, he decided to make his all-out attempt.

With two of Bannister's running mates, fellow A.A.A. Runners Chris Brasher and Chris Chataway, Trainer Stampfl had carefully worked out a plan. Brasher was to pace the first half-mile, have Chataway "challenge and pass" Bannister at that point and pull him into a fast three-quarter time. In the race, the plan worked perfectly. After a false start (Bannister held firm), Brasher dashed off into the lead. "Faster! Faster!" shouted Bannister at the 220-yd. mark. At the 440-yd. mark, Bannister was clocked in a sizzling 57.5 behind Brasher's pace. At 660 yds., Coach Stampfl shouted from the track side: "Relax! Relax!" Bannister's long-legged loping stride never changed as he hit the halfway point in 1 :58.2.

Then, according to plan, Chataway sprinted into the lead, Bannister right at his heels. Some 300 yds. from the finish. Bannister began pouring it on, lengthening his stride for his famed finishing kick, his head rolled back, his neck painfully arched. He tore the tape and collapsed unconscious into the arms of Trainer Stampfl. "I wasn't thinking about anything in particular," he said afterward. "I saw the tape faintly ahead, put everything into getting there and that was the last I knew about it."

Over the loudspeakers came the meticulous voice of the announcer: "... A time which is a new meeting and track record, and which, subject to ratification, will be a new English native, a British national, a British all comers, European, British Empire and world record. The time was three . . ."At that point, the 1,500 track fans in the stands broke into such an uproar that the rest of the announcement was lost: "Three minutes, fifty-nine and four-tenths seconds."

The Next Goal. Britain's newest hero was whisked that evening into London for a TV appearance, spent the rest of the evening in a nightclub with his running mates, breaking training with steaks and champagne until 5 a.m. By 10 a.m., he was back in class at St. Mary's Hospital Medical School, where he gets his degree later this year. Bannister had no intention of resting on the glory of his record. Said he: "The wind may have cut me down by two or three seconds, I might make even better time in the future."

Trackmen were quick to predict that Bannister will be followed by a flock of four-minute milers. Their new goal: 3:55.

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