Aftermath / bannister-mile
3:59.4
6 May 1954 · Iffley Road Track, Oxford
01 · What happened next
46 days later
Australia's John Landy broke it again — 3:57.9 in Turku, Finland.
02 · What happened next
The barrier that wasn't
The four-minute mile has since been broken by ~1,600 runners, including several high-school teenagers.
Myth versus fact
MYTH
Bannister ran the four-minute mile completely alone and unaided.
FACT
Chris Brasher and Chris Chataway — both accomplished runners in their own right — deliberately paced the first three laps specifically to give Bannister a genuine shot at the record.
MYTH
The four-minute mile was proven humanly impossible right up until Bannister broke it.
FACT
Bannister broke it by just 0.6 of a second — and 46 days later, Australia's John Landy broke Bannister's brand-new record. The "unbreakable barrier" turned out to be as much psychological as physical.