In athletics, the four-minute mile is the running of a mile (exactly 1,609.344 meters, 5280 feet) in less than four minutes. It was first achieved in 1954 by Roger Bannister in 3'59.4". The 'four minute barrier' has since been broken by many male athletes, and is now the standard of all professional middle distance runners. In the last 50 years the mile record has been lowered by almost 17 seconds.
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Record holders
John Walker managed to run 135 sub-four-minute miles during his career (during which he was the first person to run over 100 sub-four-minute miles), and American Steve Scott has run the most sub-four-minute miles, with 136. Currently, the mile record is held by Hicham El Guerrouj, who set a time of 3 minutes 43.13 seconds in Rome in 1999.
In 1964 Jim Ryun became the first high school runner to break four minutes for the mile, running 3:59.0 as a junior and a then-American record 3:55.3 as a senior in 1965. The high school record stood until Alan Webb ran 3:53.43 in 2001.
Another illustration of the progression of performance in the men's mile is that in 1994, forty years after Bannister's breaking of the barrier, the Irish runner Eamonn Coghlan became the first man over age 40 to run a sub-four-minute mile.
No woman has yet run a four-minute mile: the current women's record holder is retired Russian Svetlana Masterkova, with a time of 4 minutes 12.56 seconds.
In 1997, Daniel Komen of Kenya ran two miles in less than eight minutes, doubling up on Bannister's accomplishment.[1]
Popular culture
In 1988, the ABC and the BBC co-produced The Four Minute Mile, a miniseries dramatisation of the race to the four-minute mile, featuring Richard Huw as Bannister and Nique Needles as Landy. It was written by David Williamson and directed by Jim Goddard.
A second film version (entitled Four Minutes) was made in 2005, starring Jamie MacLachlan as Bannister.
See also
- World record progression for the mile run
- Athletics (track and field)
- Dream Mile
- Middle distance track event
External links
- Roger Bannister and the Four-Minute Mile Original reports from The Times
- Forbes magazine declared four-minute mile as "greatest athletic achievement"
- The Four Minute Mile at the Internet Movie Database
- Four Minutes at the Internet Movie Database
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