Spar Mile Challenge

Background

It's 50 years since the mile was first run in four minutes. Ian O'Riordan tracks Ireland's contribution to a great race.

Some said he might kill himself and it wasn't wholly inconceivable. Roger Bannister, dead at 25. His brave attempt at greatness a step too far into the unknown. Such was the mystique surrounding the four-minute mile this time 50 years ago. For Bannister, it was a brick wall that simply needed smashing. Even if it meant he'd expire his last that evening of May 6th, 1954, this was a race against time he wasn't about to lose.

"Ladies and gentleman. . . the time is three. . . " So goes the true story of sport's greatest barrier, broken at last.

Those that said he might die trying had a quick amendment, that the four-minute mile would never be the same. This time they were partly right. Just 46 days later, the Australian John Landy improved Bannister's 3:59.4 to 3:58.0 and history hardly noticed. A year later, three men ran under four minutes in the one race.

Yet, in other ways, much of that mystique has survived. Four minutes for the mile is still the truest measure of any middle-distance runner, a heaven that to be seen has to be believed. Half a century later, the number of Irish milers that have joined the still elite four-minute list is 39. And it's no ordinary list.

Even Bannister would have questioned the chances of a 41-year-old running the four-minute mile. Four men from the same nation averaging 3:57.5 back-to-back, or a sub-3:50 mile on the tight bends of indoor tracks. Whatever about running 100 four-minute miles in the one career. All other great mile barriers, broken or matched by the Irish.

It's a list that rightfully began in 1956 with Ronnie Delany, the same year he became Olympic champion in the metric version of the mile. Each of the 38 Irish milers that followed has his own stories attached, and does various amounts of damage to the myth of the four-minute mile. Some will leave Bannister wondering why he didn't run a whole lot quicker.

Delany tells the story of the four-minute mile he certainly hadn't planned, and where thoughts of winning flooded all thoughts of the clock. Unlike Bannister, he saw no psychological barrier. It all came wonderfully natural.

Yet, Eamonn Coghlan was so sure of the moment when he would run his first four-minute mile that he'd invited his father over to American to witness it. When he became the first man in history to run a sub-3:50 mile indoors it felt almost effortless.

Five years before Ray Flynn set the Irish mile record that still stands, he ran 3:59.4 to break four minutes for the first time, despite a bout of food poisoning the night before. It was like he walked through the barrier rather than broken it.

And when Marcus O'Sullivan went down to North Carolina as a 22-year-old he figured he too was ready to step through the apparently mythical barrier. He ran 3:58.84, and promptly threw up. There at least lies one story for those who consider the words pain and barriers as synonymous.

Together, those four milers helped develop the greatest of traditions in Irish athletics, and at their peak were mixing it with the some of the finest sporting figures on the world stage. The beginning - June 1st, 1956, Compton, California.

The Summer of 1949... read more >>