A Brief History
On March 3, 2018, the track and field world lost one of its greatest runners when Roger Bannister died, the first person to run a mile in under four minutes. Prior to Bannister’s run in 1954, many people doubted that any man could break the “four-minute barrier.” Obviously, those doubters were wrong!
Digging Deeper
Bannister was involved in another historic race, this time in the finals of the 1500-meter run at the 1952 Olympics, in which he finished 4th, the incredible part being that all eight runners in that race broke the Olympic record for the 1500!
Some other incredible athletic performances include:
Swimmer and later movie Tarzan, Johnny Weissmuller NEVER lost a race in 10 years of competition, something even Mark Spitz and Michael Phelps cannot claim.
Baron the Dachshund, ran 50 yards in 4.22 seconds, and was NEVER defeated in a Wiener Dog race. (By the way, the human 50 yard record is 5.22 seconds!)
Question for students (and subscribers): What is the greatest athletic performance? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Bannister, Roger. Four-Minute Mile. Lyons Press, 2018.
Fury, David. Johnny Weissmuller: Twice the Hero. Artist’s Press, 2013.
The featured image in this article, a photograph by Mx. Granger of a memorial stone in Westminster Abbey, is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
You can also watch video versions of this article on YouTube.
