Four minute mile

Record holders

Breaking the four-minute barrier was first achieved on 6 May 1954 at Oxford University's Iffley Road Track, by Englishman Roger Bannister, with the help of fellow-runners as pacemakers. Two months later, during the 1954 British Empire and Commonwealth Games hosted in Vancouver, B.C., two competing runners, Australia's John Landy and Bannister, ran the distance of one mile in under four minutes. The race's end is memorialised in a statue of the two (with Landy glancing over his shoulder, thus losing the race) placed in front of the Pacific National Exhibition entrance plaza.

New Zealand's John Walker, the first man to run the mile under 3:50, 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. Algeria's Noureddine Morceli was the first under 3:45. Currently, the mile record is held by Morocco's Hicham El Guerrouj, who ran a time of 3:43.13 in Rome in 1999.

In 1964, America's 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. Tim Danielson (1966) and Marty Liquori (1967) also came in under four minutes, but Ryun's high-school record stood until Alan Webb ran 3:53.43 in 2001. Ten years later, in 2011, Lukas Verzbicas became the fifth high-schooler under four minutes. In 2015, Matthew Maton and Grant Fisher became the sixth and seventh high-schoolers to break four minutes, both running 3:59.38 about a month apart. Webb was the first high schooler to run sub-4 indoors, running 3:59.86 in early 2001. On 6 February 2016, Andrew Hunter significantly improved upon Webb's mark, running 3:58.25 on the same New York Armory track and 3:57.81 two weeks later. Hunter achieved the 4 minute mile mark outdoors later in the season at the Prefontaine Classic. At that same meet Michael Slagowski joined the list of high school athletes under 4 minutes.

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 the age of 40 to run a sub-four-minute mile. Because Coghlan surpassed the mark indoors and before the IAAF validated indoor performances as being eligible for outdoor records, World Masters Athletics still had not recognised a sub-4-minute-mile performance as a record in the M40 division. Many elite athletes made the attempts to extend their careers beyond age 40 to challenge that mark. Over 18 years after Coghlan, that was finally achieved by UK's Anthony Whiteman, running 3:58.79 on 2 June 2012.

No woman has yet run a four-minute mile. As of 2015, the women's world record is held by retired Russian Svetlana Masterkova, with a time of 4:12.56 in 1996.

In 1997, Daniel Komen of Kenya ran two miles in less than eight minutes, doubling up on Bannister's accomplishment. He did it again in February 1998, falling just .3 behind his previous performance, still the only individual to accomplish the feat.

James Parrott

Some sources (including Olympic medalist Peter Radford) contend the first successful four-minute mile was run in London by James Parrott on 9 May 1770. Parrott's route began on Goswell Road, before turning down Old Street, finishing at St Leonard's, Shoreditch. Although timing methods at this time were – following the invention of the chronometer by John Harrison – accurate enough to measure the four minutes correctly the record is not recognised by modern sporting bodies. Neal Bascomb notes in The Perfect Mile that "even nineteenth-century historians cast a skeptical eye on the account."

The Weller Run

Then in 1796, the Sporting Magazine reported that on 10 October of that year a young man called Weller, "undertook for a wager of three guineas (about 5 months pay at that time) to run one mile on the Banbury road, in four minutes, which he performed two seconds within the time."

In other words, the magazine reports that he ran a mile in three minutes, fifty eight seconds. By that time, a mile could be routinely measured to within a few inches; watches, thanks to John Harrison, could measure 4 minutes to within 0.0009 sec (ie gain or lose 10 seconds a month), and after about 1750 the mass production of highly accurate watches was well underway.

Glenn Cunningham

It is also reputed that Glenn Cunningham achieved a four-minute mile in a workout in the 1920s. In addition to being unsubstantiated, a workout run would not count as a record.

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 John Landy (who was simultaneously pursuing the milestone). It was written by David Williamson and directed by Jim Goddard.

In 2004, Neal Bascomb wrote a book entitled The Perfect Mile about Roger Bannister, John Landy, and Wes Santee portraying their individual attempts to break the four-minute mile and the context of the sport of mile racing. A second film version (entitled Four Minutes) was made in 2005, starring Jamie Maclachlan as Bannister.

In June 2011 the watch used to time the original event was donated by Jeffrey Archer to a charity auction for Oxford University Athletics Club and sold for £97,250.

In July 2016 the BBC broadcast the documentary Bannister: Everest on the Track, The Roger Bannister Story with firsthand interviews from Bannister and various other figures on the first sub-4 minute mile.