"Three minutes, 59.4 seconds," the announcer, famously, had tried to tell the crowd but they only heard the word "three" before drowning him out. This, one of the greatest sports stories, had unfolded at a meet between Oxford University and Amateur Athletic Association. In Birmingham, England, on the final day of the World Indoor Championships - the same day it was announced that Bannister had succumbed to Parkinson's disease - organisers hastily arranged a screening of the grainy footage of that exhausted 25-year-old medical student, eyes closed and mouth agape, breaking the four-minute mile barrier at Oxford's Iffley Road track on the grey, golden evening of May 6, 1954. It was as though a younger generation agonising over cyclist Bradley Wiggins was simultaneously being introduced to a long-forgotten but still spotless national monument. "The last of the gentleman athletes" one newspaper story tagged him fondly alongside bigger banner headlines bemoaning a 21st century British sporting knight embroiled in a messy doping controversy. In Britain, the tributes to the runner who had arguably owned the fabled title of "GLE" - Greatest Living Englishman - were genuine, deep and affectionate, seeming to tell not so much of the passing of a legend as of an era. The world said a sad, sober farewell to Sir Roger Bannister on Sunday without overdone fuss and fanfare, just the way the great man would have liked it. The story of runner Roger Bannister, the 'Greatest Living Englishman' You have reached a degraded version of because you're using an unsupported version of Internet Explorer.įor a complete experience, please upgrade or use a supported browser
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |