
The Ordinary Greatness of Roger Bannister - refrigerator
https://www.newyorker.com/sports/postscript/the-ordinary-greatness-of-roger-bannister
======
francisofascii
Roger Bannister was far from ordinary in his time. High school runners can run
4 minute miles today, mainly because they have the benefit of knowing how to
properly train, thanks to all previous athletes and trainers that came before
them. The metaphor "Standing on the shoulders of giants" comes to mind.

~~~
JamesCoyne
There is a popular TED talk which argues in part that improved technology and
training is key to modern records. Bannister is mentioned briefly at 3 minutes
in.

[https://www.ted.com/talks/david_epstein_are_athletes_really_...](https://www.ted.com/talks/david_epstein_are_athletes_really_getting_faster_better_stronger?language=en#t-169690)

The speaker notes that Bannister ran his mile on a cinder track and claims it
degrades performance by 1.5% compared to a modern synthetic track.

Cinder tracks _do_ look like they would be quite soft.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NGgiMDHjKM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NGgiMDHjKM)

This site claims that British cinder tracks were mostly crushed brick rubble.
They required heavily spiked shoes.

[https://theolympians.co/2015/07/01/the-last-of-the-cinder-
tr...](https://theolympians.co/2015/07/01/the-last-of-the-cinder-tracks/)

~~~
mikestew
As one old enough, and went to a school poorly-funded enough, to have run on a
cinder track, I'm truly surprised at a mere 1.5% performance loss. Perhaps
pro-level tracks in the 50s were better taken care of than our high school
track, but I'd guess (and this is from memory quite some time ago) double-
digit percentages of loss. When we had a home meet on our cinder track, we
just ran for place because the times wouldn't even be in the neighborhood of
the worst all-weather (paved/hard-surfaced) track. To run 4 minutes on such a
thing with 50s nutrition and training? Unimaginable to me.

Let alone compared to the rubberized-surface of a (what used to be) high-level
track. Even the local Redmond high school track is miles better than the best
I ran on in the 80s.

As for what the "cinders" were made of, I'm pretty sure ours was made from
literal cinders. The output of coal-fired power plants, IIRC. It wasn't brick
rubble, that's for sure.

~~~
JamesCoyne
I often wonder about the extent of training done by early-modern olympic
caliber athletes. As the olympics were originally supposed to be for amateurs,
it sounds like a person who devoted most of their time to training was not
considered a fair sport.

~~~
gms7777
> it sounds like a person who devoted most of their time to training was not
> considered a fair sport.

Amateurism in sports is a complex subject, but in many ways has its roots
planted in classism. Its similar to how unpaid internships nowadays can
reinforce a class divide in certain fields -- those with family support or
independent wealth are able to take unpaid internships while those that need
the money can't afford to take those opportunities. In similar ways, requiring
athletes to be amateurs didn't mean that amateur athletes didn't devote a lot
of time to training, it meant that those that couldn't afford to spend their
time training while unpaid couldn't compete.

Late 19th century definitions of amateur went even further than that: It
restricted "amateurs" to those who had never profited for physical labor. That
meant if you worked as a bricklayer and trained unpaid on the side, you were
ineligible to compete.

------
gdepalma
In twenty-five years there will probably be high school athletes hitting
forehands like Roger Federer.

------
bloak
Interestingly, he probably wasn't the first person to run a mile in four
minutes:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-
minute_mile#Possible_othe...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-
minute_mile#Possible_other_claims)

Probably none of the previous cases is sufficiently well documented to be
recognised on its own, but there are several cases that are 90% certain, or
thereabouts, so probably at least one of the previous cases - there are more
of them than the three mentioned in the Wikipedia article - did involve
someone running a mile in four minutes. There's a whole book on the subject, I
think, but I can't remember the title.

~~~
wging
None of those are really credible, and "90% certain" doesn't really fit with
the level of knowledge you're describing about the other supposed cases.

~~~
bloak
Not sure what you mean by any of that. There's a bit more info here if you're
interested in digging deeper:

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27298505](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27298505)
[https://www.theactivetimes.com/does-first-four-minute-
mile-p...](https://www.theactivetimes.com/does-first-four-minute-mile-predate-
american-revolutionary-war)

I can't find the book I was thinking of. I don't think it was "Running: A
Global History", but perhaps it was.

(I though this stuff might be interesting for some people. Am I breaking some
rule by mentioning it in this context?)

