"Four Minutes"

On Oct. 6th, ESPN will be airing "Four Minutes," a made-for-TV movie that celebrates Roger Bannister's attempt to become the first man to run one mile in under four minutes. As a fan of track and field, why am I not thrilled?

Certainly the story is worth telling. In fact, I think every educated person should be familiar with Roger Bannister and with the mid-20th century fascination with testing the limits of human capability. The four-minute mile (four laps of a standard track in under four laps) was the running equivalent of scaling Mt. Everest. Both were terribly, terribly important to Great Britain's sense of pride. Now, fifty years later, it's almost comical to read the dire pronouncements from medical and other self-appointed experts on human physiology predicting that a man would never run a four-minute mile, and if he did, he would expire immediately after crossing the finish line. For over a dozen years, runners around the world came close, and the numerous close calls added to the mystique of being the first one to do the deed.

Then, finally, on a stormy day at the Iffley Road track in Oxford, 24-year-old medical student Roger Bannister, aided considerably by the pacing of his two friends and training partners Chris Chataway and Chris Brasher, ran 3:59.4 and became part of history.

Bannister's feat became worldwide news, and Bannister himself a sensation.
Now ESPN, the network of Sports Update and Baseball Tonight has commissioned respected sportswriter Frank Deford to write a screenplay, and we are to see the results on Oct. 6th. I hope I am wrong, but I expect the movie to be pretty bad.

I expect the movie to focus almost exclusively on Bannister himself, as a Hamlet-like figure who can't decide whether to commit himself to running or focus on his medical career. I expect the movie to twist most of the facts to suit this view of the young medical student with the great talent, ignoring the parts of the story that I find most interesting. For example, in the movie, Bannister is coached by Archie Mason, a former world-class runner now confined to a wheelchair. That adds a nice touch, don't you think? In reality Bannister was mostly self-coached, carrying out extensive experiments to understand how to train the body to tolerate high-speed for four minutes. He did begin working with Austrian coach Franz Stampfl several months prior to running 3:59, and many people credit Stampfl with getting Bannister past the mental barrier that the four-minute mile represented. So why eliminate the fascinating character of Stampfl in favor of the fictional Archie Mason?

And too, I expect the movie to minimize any mention of the other runners who were also knocking on the door of four minutes. If true, this will be a shame, because I think the reason it was such a big deal seems to be that runners around the world were coming so close for so long. We'll see how the movie treats John Landy, the Australian who ran five races between 4:01 and 4:03 before Bannister ran his 3:59. If John Landy isn't in the movie, then I don't want to see it.

For a wonderful account of the events leading up to, of, and following Bannister's race at Oxford, I strongly recommend Neal Bascomb's book "The Perfect Mile." I didn't expect much from that book either, but I loved it. Not only did it give a wealth of historical detail, it provided terrific insights into the characters of three men -- Bannister, Landy, and American Wes Santee -- who were all capable of being the first to run four laps in four minutes.

Well, none of this has much to do with high school cross-country. Tomorrow I'll try to be back on topic.