‘Greatest sporting feat in the last 100 years’: Roger Bannister’s sub four-minute mile

Sebastian Coe’s description of the doctor’s record-breaking run in 1954 underlines its enduring significance 70 years laterPerhaps it takes one sporting giant to truly appreciate the towering performance of another. Exactly 70 years ago today, Sir Roger Bannister became the first person to run a mile in under four minutes, a target that existed purely in the realms of the fantastical until, on that blustery Oxford day in 1954, he subverted the possible. How good was it? Well, when I