The Perfect Mile. Neal Bascomb

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СКАЧАТЬ round and semi-final in the previous two days had been brutal. To avoid the jostling and elbowing of a crowded field he’d run both races in the second and third lanes, adding at least twenty yards to each and exhausting himself even more. The semi-final had been especially taxing because there was a fight to the finish that placed him a narrow four-tenths of a second ahead of Jungwirth from Czechoslovakia, who had failed to qualify. Usually Bannister required three or four days of recovery after such a race because of his limited training regime, but now he had been given only twenty-four hours.

      In his room, waiting as the minutes ticked past, Bannister knew the 1,500m final would draw the world’s attention. He knew the stands would be jammed to capacity. He knew his competitors had also trained for thousands of hours for this day, and that they would strive with every muscle and ounce of will to claim victory. It was impossible not to rehearse the coming race over and over again in his head. How quickly should he start? Should he stay on the inside lane or move to the outside? Where must he be by the third lap? How close to the finish could he start his burst?

      When Bannister made his way down the tunnel underneath the stadium that afternoon, he was no less tortured. His face was blanched, his step uncertain. Australian miler Don Macmillan walked alongside him. He was in bad shape as well, dehydrated and soaked with perspiration after the voodoo warm-up imposed by his coach, yet he noticed that Bannister, against whom he had run in New Zealand in 1950, was pale and nervous.

      ‘Good luck, Don,’ Bannister said, heading up into the stadium.

      ‘Thanks, Roger,’ Macmillan choked out.

      The time had come. When the Duke of Edinburgh arrived in the stands, the crowd cheered. The sun even broke through the clouds to honour this signature Olympic race. While the other athletes stretched and jogged around the infield to warm up, Bannister rested on the bench. Chris Brasher, the British steeplechaser and former president of the Cambridge University Athletic Club, watched from the stands and later described his friend’s appearance: ‘There was a peculiar loneliness about Roger. He stood apart from the others, looking drawn and white, as if he were about to go into a torture chamber.’ Chris Chataway was also in the stands. He had written to his mother the day before to tell her how concerned he was about Bannister’s state in the days before his race. As Chataway waited for the race to begin, he worried that his room-mate had already defeated himself in his mind. However, though tense and sapped of energy from two heats, Bannister still felt that he had a chance. Every race was imperfect, and he had always come through in the past.

      Once Finnish middle-distance runner Denis Johansson had completed a presumptuous pre-race victory lap, the starter called the race. With the eleven others, Bannister came to the line. The crowd hushed for the gun. He had prepared his whole athletics career for this moment. Suddenly, they were off.

      The German Lamers carried the field through the first lap in 57.8 seconds, looking as though he might be pacing for his countryman and the favourite to win, Werner Lueg. Throughout this first lap, Bannister stayed to the inside; he did not have the energy to battle in the middle of the pack. Lamers soon faded, and Lueg took the lead, finishing the second lap at a slower pace in 2:01.4. By this time Bannister had managed to come up through the field and was running in fifth place. At the bell, Lueg was still leading. He finished the third lap in 3:03, still on the slow side given the field’s talent. Only three-quarters of a lap to go.

      In the radio broadcast booth, BBC announcer Harold Abrahams was worried for Bannister, despite the fact that he was in the right position – third – for making his break. ‘He is not running as well as one would hope,’ Abrahams said. ‘He is looking rather tired.’

      In the back straight of the last lap, the race heated up. Two hundred metres from the finish and the whole field was nearly sprinting. Down the straight, Aberg of Sweden and then El Mabrouk of France tried to surge to the head of the pack. Bannister was next, deciding to strike at the same time Lovelock had in the 1936 Olympics final to win the gold.

      ‘Bannister is in third position with 180 metres to go. Bannister fighting magnificently. Bannister now trying to get into the lead.’

      This was it, Bannister thought. Although he had suffered nothing but dread since learning of the added semi-final, he was now in the ideal spot to win the gold. He had managed the jostling field, kept with the pace, and avoiding tripping. As he moved into the final turn, now in second place, he called on the full effect of his finishing kick – his most potent weapon. He gave the order to his legs to go, but for the first time in his life his kick wasn’t there. When he should have leapt ahead, he stalled. His legs just didn’t have the energy. It was a shock. Little Josey Barthel from Luxembourg swept by him, unbelievably, impossibly. Then the American, McMillen, passed him as well. Bannister felt drained and helpless, knowing he had lost.

      ‘Bannister is fading!’ Abrahams called into the microphone.

      Lueg held strong, stretching his lead by three yards at the end of the turn. Barthel then struck, delivering the finish Bannister wanted for his own. The Luxemburger cruised past Lueg in the final fifty metres with McMillen also coming up fast.

      ‘And it’s Barthel wins. Second, the American. Third, Lueg. Fourth, Bannister. Time, 3:45.2.’

      It was a new Olympic record, and the surprise upset of the Games. Bannister was so exhausted by the end of the race that he had to hold on to the back of Lueg’s singlet to keep from pitching to the track. He hadn’t even claimed a bronze. The British team was distraught. Columnists began to sharpen their pencils. This was a betrayal of trust.

      Barthel was handed roses, and then he rested on a bench to take off his shoes. The New Yorker’s A. J. Liebling observed, ‘He had had no trainer and no compatriot with him when he came into the stadium, and he was still alone. It must have been a great solace to him on the night before the race, knowing he had nobody to disappoint.’ How different it was for Bannister who, full of emotion, later watched Barthel mount the victory dais and weep tears of joy while Luxembourg’s anthem played throughout the stadium. For Bannister, the Helsinki final was a disaster. He told his friend Brasher years later, ‘A disaster is something which is shared between you and the public which expects something of you and which you cannot or have not fulfilled.’

      As he headed back to the Olympic Village later that afternoon, fending off the press who were preparing to excoriate him for his insufficient preparations, Bannister needed to find a way to overcome what had happened. He couldn’t go out a loser. His answer would be to attempt a challenge that had been in the making for a very long time: the four-minute mile. And he would not be alone in the effort.

5

       The man who has made the mile record is W. G. George … His time was 4 minutes 12.75 seconds, and the probability is that this record will never be beaten.

      Harry Andrews, 1903

       To the furthest limit he searches out.

      Job 28:3

      Before stopwatches, cinder tracks, and perfect records, man ran for the purest of reasons: to survive. The saying goes that ‘Every morning in Africa, an antelope wakes up. It knows it must outrun the fastest lion, or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest antelope, or it will starve. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a lion or an antelope – when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.’ There are few instincts more natural than the body in full motion as it races across a field or through the trees. From the beginning, we were all made to run. In days past, when ‘survival of the fittest’ meant exactly that, the only measure of the race was whether the hunted reached safety before being СКАЧАТЬ