With Chris Brasher setting the pace on the cinder track, they ran a first lap in 57.5 seconds, then 60.7 - 1:58.2 for the half mile. In this file photo taken on Roger Bannister rings the original record bell at Oxford College during the mile race, to mark the 50th anniversary celebrations for his four-minute mile record. But, shortly before 6 p.m., the wind died down. When Bannister looked up at the English flag whipping in the wind atop a nearby church, he feared he would have to call off the record attempt. His chance finally came on a wet, cool, blustery May afternoon during a meet between Oxford and the Amateur Athletic Association. Although I tried in 1953, I broke the British record, but not the four-minute mile, and so everything was ready in 1954.” Our new queen had been crowned the year before, Everest had been climbed in 1953. “I thought it would be right for Britain to try to get this,” Bannister said. He also wanted to deliver something special for his country. “As it became clear that somebody was going to do it, I felt that I would prefer it to be me,” Bannister told the AP. In this May 6, 1954, file photo, British Athlete Roger Bannister breaks the tape to become the first man ever to break the four-minute barrier in the mile at Iffly Field in Oxford, England. Swedish runner Gundar Haegg’s mile time of 4:01.4 had stood for nine years, but in 1954 Bannister, Australian rival John Landy and others were threatening to break it. Instead of retiring from the sport, he decided to chase the four-minute mark. He might not have set the milestone but for the disappointment of finishing without a medal in the 1,500 metres, known as the metric mile, in the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki. “I’d like to see it as a metaphor not only for sport, but for life and seeking challenges.” “It became a symbol of attempting a challenge in the physical world of something hitherto thought impossible,” Bannister said as he approached the 50th anniversary of the feat. The enduring image of the lanky Oxford medical student - head tilted back, eyes closed and mouth agape as he strained across the finishing tape - captured the public’s imagination, made him a global celebrity and lifted the spirits of Britons still suffering through postwar austerity. 26, 2014, former British athlete Roger Bannister poses for a picture during the launch of the Westminster Mile run, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Bannister’s record of being the first man to run a sub-four minute mile in May 1954, at Paddington Recreation Ground in London. “It’s amazing that more people have climbed Mount Everest than have broken the four-minute mile,” Bannister said in an interview with The Associated Press in 2012. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.
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